Henry Fuseli was a Swiss painter, draughtsman, and writer on art who spent much of his career in Britain.
Paintings by Henry Fuseli
The Nightmare (1781)
The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman with her arms thrown below her, in deep sleep as she undergoes a nightmare as an almost hidden horse (the "night-mare") looks on as a demonic and ape-like incubus crouches on her chest. Its erotic and haunting evocation of obsession became a breakthrough success for Fuseli. Critics were taken aback by its overt sexuality, since interpreted as anticipating Jungian ideas about the unconscious.
Although Fuseli had unsuccessfully exhibited at the Royal Academy of London many times earlier, critics reacted with horrified fascination when this painting was shown at his 1782 showing, and the Nightmare became his first commercially successful work. The image became popular to the extent that he produced at least three other versions, engraved versions became widely distributed, it was parodied in political satire, and became a frequent source for 19th-century Gothic fiction authors such as Mary Shelley.
Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent (1790)
Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, from 1790. It is held at the Royal Academy of Arts Collections, in London.
The nude and muscular Thor stands in Hymir's boat with the Jörmungandr on his fish hook. In the top left corner, the god Odin appears as an old man. It depicts one of the most popular myths in Germanic mythology, Thor's fishing trip, which was known to Fuseli through P. H. Mallet's 1755 book Introduction à l'histoire du Dannemarc, translated to English by Thomas Percy in 1770 as Northern Antiquities. The Zurich artist had also traveled to the Italian peninsula, where he was able to admire the art of ancient masters, such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, whose sculptural nudes where a great source of inspiration for this canvas. The painting was Fuseli's diploma work for his election to the British Royal Academy of Arts in 1790.
Titania and Bottom (1790)
Titania and Bottom is an oil painting by the Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli. It dates to around 1790 and is in Tate Britain, in London. It was commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery and depicts a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.
Henry Fuseli had become familiar with William Shakespeare's plays as a student in Zürich. He used them as the basis for paintings throughout his career. He became famous for his treatment of supernatural matters, which gave a special appeal to A Midsummer Night's Dream, along with plays like The Tempest, Hamlet and Macbeth.
The Vision of Catherine of Aragon (1781)
The Vision of Catherine of Aragon, or Queen Catherine's Vision, is a painting in oils on canvas by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, created in 1781. The work is held at the Lytham St Annes Art Collection, in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, England.
This canvas represents a passage from the play Henry VIII, Act IV, scene 2, by William Shakespeare, where Queen Catherine of Aragon has a macabre dream of her own end after being banished in favour of Anne Boleyn. The Queen is lying on her deathbed, and she raises her left arm towards the crown offered to her by several partially naked female ghostly apparitions, in an emotion that surprises her servant sitting at her bedside, at the foot of a lyre and a sculpture. Both women are dressed in ancient classical attire, not in the 16th-century fashion. In the Shakespearean text the spirits wear garlands and oval masks known as visards, while holding palm or laurel branches, but Fuseli omitted these details. In the background there is the deposed Queen's gaoler, almost hidden in the darkness.
Dido (Fuseli) (1781)
Dido is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss-British artist Henry Fuseli, created in 1781. This mythological work represents Iris preparing to cut the hair of the corpse of Dido, the queen of Carthage, who lies bare-chested, with a bloody sword at her side, after committing suicide. The work is held at the Yale Center for British Art, in New Haven.
The canvas is inspired by an episode of the Aeneid, by Virgil, more precisely by the tragic end of Dido. The founder of Carthage had fallen in love with Aeneas, and his departure in search of a new homeland for the Trojans broke her heart, and she committed suicide by stabbing herself. Dido is seen seated, with her arms stretched in the shape of a cross. For Fuseli, Dido's suicide is an example of a "supreme beauty in the jaws of death". The goddess Juno, enemy of Aeneas, sent her messenger Iris to cut a lock of the queen's hair, and this is the scene depicted in the painting. At the foot of her corpse, there is a woman crying, most likely Anna, Dido's sister. The lighting is concentrated on the center of the work, leaving the edges more in shadows, except for the upper part, where Iris appears. The outstretched arms of the Punic queen recall those of other female figures in Fuseli's paintings, such as The Nightmare and The Dream of Queen Catherine.
Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers (1812)
Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss-British artist Henry Fuseli, created in 1812. The work is held at the Tate Britain, in London.
Fuseli was a great admirer of William Shakespeare; he himself had translated the play Macbeth to German. He created several paintings inspired by Shakespeare's works. This painting, most likely a sketch for an intended larger work, represents a passage from the second scene of the second act of the same play. In this scene the protagonist, Macbeth, holds at arm's length the still bloody daggers with which he has just killed King Duncan, while his wife Lady Macbeth, the instigator of the regicide, signals him to be silent while rushing towards her husband to disarm him. Macbeth appears remorseful, while his wife appears more confident. The scene has a fantastical appearance; the characters resemble glowing spectres in a dark background.
Percival Delivering Belisane from the Enchantment of Urma (1783)
Percival Delivering Belisane from the Enchantment of Urma is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, from 1783. It is held at the Tate Britain, in London.
It depicts a Gothic scene, where Percival awakes from his sleep to rescue the damsel Belasine from the wizard Urma. It was one of two paintings, along with the now lost Belisane and Percival Under the Enchantment of Urma of 1782, that the artist claimed to have based on the Provencal Tales of Kyot. This appears to be an entirely fictitious saga of Fuseli's own creation. Such inventions of supposedly real works were common in Gothic literature.
Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking (1781)
Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking is a c. 1784 oil painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. Based on the Sleepwalking scene of the 1606 tragedy Macbeth by William Shakespeare, it depicts a life-size Lady Macbeth sleepwalking. Long resident in Britain, Fuseli was known for his Gothic paintings. He produced a number of pictures inspired by Macbeth.
The painting was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1784 at Somerset House in London. Today it is in the collection of the Louvre in Paris, having been purchased in 1970.
The Dream of Belinda (1780)
The Dream of Belinda is an oil on canvas painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, from c. 1780-1790. It was inspired in the poem The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope. According to scholar Robert Halsband, this "brilliant" work is no illustration, rather an imaginative fusion of elements and themes from the poem with "symbols from Fuseli's own world of dreams and fantasy".
In his artworks and his writings, and perhaps in part due to the influence of compatriot Johann Jakob Bodmer, Fuseli drew inspiration time and again from the classics of world literature, including Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Nibelungenlied. This outpouring included nine paintings for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and forty-seven for his own Milton Gallery. Private correspondence shows a less enthusiastic attitude towards 18th-century English poetry, with Pope's "metrical and rimed prose", "dull monotony of ear", and "drowsy psalmody" singled out by the artist for particular criticism. But there was an exception: "Pope never shewed poetic genius but once, and that, in 'The Rape of the Lock'".
The Oath on the Grütli (1780)
The Oath on the Rütli, also known as The Oath of the Three Confederates on the Rütli, is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, created in 1779–1781. It was commissioned by the city of Zürich, and is now held in the Kunsthaus Zürich. There are also several sketches and studies preserved in various museums around the world.
This canvas is a history painting that illustrates the moment of the Rütli oath, where the delegates of the Swiss cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden swear to free themselves from the domination of the Habsburgs, on the Grütli or Rütli meadow, in 1307, creating the Old Swiss Confederacy. The three men are represented with their hands in the center, one above the other, while they look towards the sky raising the other arm. The three characters wear armor and the figure in the center is brandishing a sword. Behind them a ray of light illuminates the cloudy sky.
Britomart Delivering Amoretta from the Enchantment of Busirane (1824)
Britomart Delivering Amoretta from the Enchantment of Busirane is an 1824 oil on canvas painting by Swiss painter Henry Fuseli. It has been held at the Freies Deutsches Hochstift in Frankfurt since 1957.
The painting depicts a scene from Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, in which the female knight Britomart frees Amoretta, a beautiful woman, from her captivity at the hands of Busirane, an evil sorcerer. In Fuseli's painting, Britomart is swinging her sword as if about to kill Busirane. In the poem, however, Amoretta stops Britomart from slaying the sorcerer, as he is the only one who can break the magic which is holding her captive.
Falstaff in the Laundry Basket (1792)
Falstaff in the Laundry Basket is an oil on canvas painting by the Swiss-British artist Henry Fuseli, from 1792. It is held in the Kunsthaus, in Zürich.
It depicts a scene inspired by William Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. It depicts the moment Falstaff is tricked into hiding himself in a laundry basket by the two woman who are helping him. The woman look in the right, that appears reflected in the mirror, seems inspired by the artists wife, Sophia. Falstaff does have an unpleasant expression and his round, bearded face, seems mask-like. In fact, the two women plan to throw him to the Thames River.