16 Works, February 7th. is artist Henry Fuseli's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #038

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

The Three Witches

Oil on canvas

243/4 x 301/4 in. (62.8 x 76.9 cm.)

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

The painting depicts the pivotal moment in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth (act 1, scene 3) when the protagonist encounters a demonic trio of witches who foretell his fate. Fuseli revels in the play’s ominous mood, tripling the motif of hooded head, extended hand, and sealed lips of the mannish figures, whose appearance is taken directly from Shakespeare’s description: “… you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so.” More on this painting

Henry Fuseli RA (7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his works, such as The Nightmare (see below), deal with supernatural subject-matter. He painted works for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, and created his own "Milton Gallery". (see below) He held the posts of Professor of Painting and Keeper at the Royal Academy. His style had a considerable influence on many younger British artists, including William Blake.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Milton Dictating to His Daughter, c. 1793

Oil on canvas

121.2 × 118.7 cm (47 3/4 × 46 3/4 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

Fuseli was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the second of 18 children. His father intended Henry for the church, and sent him to the Caroline college of Zurich, where he received an excellent classical education. 

After taking orders in 1761, Fuseli travelled through Germany, and then, in 1765, visited England, where he acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom he showed his drawings. Following Reynolds' advice, he decided to devote himself entirely to art. In 1770 he made an art-pilgrimage to Italy, where he remained until 1778, changing his name from Füssli to the more Italian-sounding Fuseli.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

The two murderers of the Duke of Clarence, between 1780 and 1782

Oil on canvas

Height: 68.6 cm (27 in); Width: 53.3 cm (20.9 in)

Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (21 October 1449 – 18 February 1478), was a son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions of the Plantagenets known as the Wars of the Roses.

Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed. He appears as a character in William Shakespeare's plays Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III, in which his death is attributed to the machinations of Richard. More on this painting

Early in 1779 he returned to Britain. In London he found a commission awaiting him from Alderman Boydell, who was then setting up his Shakespeare Gallery. Fuseli painted a number of pieces for Boydell, and published an English edition of Lavater's work on physiognomy. 

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Sophia Rawlins, the artist's wife, c. 18th century

Oil on canvas

Height: 60 cm (23.6 in); Width: 49.5 cm (19.4 in)

Unidentified location

He also gave William Cowper some valuable assistance in preparing a translation of Homer. In 1788 Fuseli married Sophia Rawlins, originally one of his models.

John Raphael Smith (British, 1752 - 1812)

Lear and Cordelia, c. 1784

Mezzo tint on laid paper

45.6 x 56.7 cm (17 15/16 x 22 5/16 in.)

AGO Collections, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Cordelia is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear. Cordelia is the youngest of King Lear's three daughters, and his favourite. After her elderly father offers her the opportunity to profess her love to him in return for one third of the land in his kingdom, she refuses and is banished for the majority of the play (see below). More on this painting

Henry Fuseli (Swiss, 1741 - 1825)

Lear Banishing Cordeliac. 1784-1790

Oil on canvas

267.3 x 364.5 cm (105 1/4 x 143 1/2 in.)

AGO Collections, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent, c. 1788

Oil on canvas

Height: 131 cm (51.5 in); Width: 91 cm (35.8 in)

Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, 

London,

In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr, also known as the Midgard (World) Serpent, is a sea serpent, the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and Loki. According to the Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða—the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and Jörmungandr—and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard. The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the Earth and grasp its own tail. As a result, it received the name of World Serpent. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök will begin. Jörmungandr's arch-enemy is the thunder-god, Thor. More on Midgard Serpent

This mythological subject comes from the Icelandic sagas of the Edda, which were known in England from P. H. Mallet’s book Northern Antiquities (1770). Fuseli depicts the fable in which Thor rows out in a boat with the giant Hymir, shown cowering somewhat cowardly in the stern. Using an ox’s head as bait, Thor manages to fish up the Serpent of Midgard. In the top left is shown the elderly figure of the god Odin. More on this painting

In 1790 he became a full Academician, presenting Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent as his diploma work.[6] In 1799 Fuseli was appointed professor of painting to the Academy. Four years later he was chosen as Keeper, and resigned his professorship, but resumed it in 1810, continuing to hold both offices until his death.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Titania and Bottom, c. circa 1790

Oil on canvas

Height: 2,172 mm (85.51 in); Width: 2,756 mm (108.50 in)

Tate Britain

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Titania and Bottom, c. circa 1790

Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

Fuseli was introduced to Shakespeare's plays during his student days in Zürich with the Swiss scholar Jacob Bodmer. A Midsummer Night's Dream held a special appeal for him, in that it explores the realms of the supernatural.

In the picture Fuseli illustrates a moment from Act IV scene 1, in which Oberon, in order to punish her for her pride, casts a spell on Queen Titania, as a result of which she falls in love with Bottom, whose head has been transformed into that of an ass. In the play she murmurs lovingly to the object of her affections.

Titania calls on her fairies, who are wearing contemporary dress, to attend to Bottom: Pease-blossom scratches his ass's head; Mustard-seed perches on his hand in order to assist; and Cobweb kills a bee and brings him the honey-bag. A leering young woman offers him a basket of dried peas. The young woman leading a dwarf-like creature by a string symbolises the triumph of youth over old age, of the senses over the mind and of woman over man. The hooded old woman on the right is holding a changeling newly formed out of wax. Similarly, on the left of the picture, the group of children are artificial beings created by witches. More on this painting

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Falstaff in the laundry basket, c. 1792

Oil on canvas

Height: 137 cm (53.9 in); Width: 170 cm (66.9 in)

Kunsthaus de Zúrich

Stephanie Przybylek: “It’s a scene from Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor. Women have just convinced a character named Falstaff to hide in a basket of dirty laundry. Fuseli’s captured the moment when he falls in. Falstaff sprawls among the clothes as the women enthusiastically cover him with more. Another person’s face peaks around the corner, and one of the women smiles at him. Is Falstaff in trouble? We know this isn’t the end of the story. In fact, the basket of dirty laundry then gets dumped into the dirty river.” More on this painting

In 1799 Fuseli exhibited a series of paintings from subjects furnished by the works of John Milton (see below), with a view to forming a Milton gallery comparable to Boydell's Shakespeare gallery. There were 47 Milton paintings, many of them very large, completed at intervals over nine years. The exhibition proved a commercial failure and closed in 1800. In 1805 he brought out an edition of Pilkington's Lives of the Painters, which did little for his reputation.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

The Creation of Eve, c. 1793

Oil on canvas

Height: 307 cm (10 ft); Width: 207 cm (81.4 in)

Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Henry Fuseli (Swiss, Zürich 1741–1825 London)

 The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches, c. 1796

Oil on canvas

40 x 49 3/4 in. (101.6 x 126.4 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This canvas, first exhibited in 1799, was sold by the artist in 1808 to his biographer, John Knowles. It illustrates a passage from Paradise Lost (II, 622–66) in which the hellhounds surrounding Sin are compared to those who "follow the night-hag when, called, / In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance / With Lapland witches, while the laboring moon Eclipses at their charms." "Night-hag" is an epithet of the Greek goddess Hecate, who presided over witchcraft and magical rites. More on this painting

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan and the Birth of Sin, Painting no. 6 from The Milton Gallery, between 1771 and 1799

Oil on canvas

Dallas Museum of Art 

This painting by Johann Heinrich Fuseli is a quintessential example of the themes that preoccupied many artists during the last decades of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, with the dawning of romanticism. Centered upon the sharply lit sculptural anatomy of the enthroned Satan, this dramatic painting depicts the astonishing moment of the birth of Sin, who bursts forth from Satan’s head like Athena from Zeus. The subject is from Book II of John Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost, lines 746–758. More on this painting

Antonio Canova, when on his visit to England, was much taken with Fuseli's works, and on returning to Rome in 1817 caused him to be elected a member of the first class in the Academy of St Luke.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

Portrait painting of Anna Landoldt, c, 1781

Oil on canvas

101 x 127 cm

Detroit Institute of Arts

The portrait is generally believed to be of the woman Fuseli loved, Anna Landolt, who was a niece of the Zurich physiologist Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801). Lavater and Fuseli were close friends, but Fuseli's suit was rejected by Anna's parents, and it may not be coincidence that the portrait is on the reverse of his painting The Nightmare. More on this painting

As a painter, Fuseli favoured the supernatural. He pitched everything on an ideal scale, believing a certain amount of exaggeration necessary in the higher branches of historical painting. 

Though not noted as a colourist, Fuseli was described as a master of light and shadow. Rather than setting out his palette methodically in the manner of most painters, he merely distributed the colours across it randomly. He often used his pigments in the form of a dry powder, which he hastily combined on the end of his brush with oil, or turpentine, or gold size, regardless of the quantity, and depending on accident for the general effect. This recklessness may perhaps be explained by the fact that he did not paint in oil until the age of 25.

Henry Fuseli  (1741–1825)

The Nightmare, c. 1781

Oil on canvas

Height: 101.6 cm (40 in); Width: 127 cm (50 in)

Detroit Institute of Arts

Fuseli portrayed a young woman on the back of this painting. If it is true that both images are his beloved Anna Landolt, whose parents refused to allow her to marry him, then the Nightmare can be interpreted as an allegory of disappointment. In that case the grisly ape is the man who is ultimately allowed to "possess" the revered lady with his jealous glance. But it is at the price of her life, and Fuseli shows her sunk down and breathing her last. More on this painting

Fuseli painted more than 200 pictures, but he exhibited only a small number of them. His earliest painting represented "Joseph interpreting the Dreams of the Baker and Butler" (see below) ; the first to excite particular attention was The Nightmare (See above), exhibited in 1782. He painted two versions, shown in the Nightmare article. Themes seen in The Nightmare such as horror, dark magic and sexuality, were echoed in his 1796 painting, Night-Hag visiting the Lapland Witches (see above).

Henry Fuseli (Swiss, 1741--1825)

Joseph interpreting the Dreams of the Pharaoh's Baker and Butler

Oil on canvas

86.6 x 65.1 cm. (34.1 x 25.6 in.)

Private collection

According to the biblical story, Pharaoh had a dream that no one could interpret for him. His chief cupbearer then remembered that Joseph had interpreted a dream for him when he was in prison two years earlier. So, Joseph was “brought from the dungeon” and shaved and changed his clothes. He then came before Pharaoh and told him that his dream meant there would be seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt followed by seven years of famine. More on Joseph and Pharaoh

The significant rediscovery of Fuseli's missing first painting, Joseph interpreting the Dreams of the Pharaoh's Baker and Butler, has thrown some much needed light on the curious disconnect between this work and the two known engravings purportedly after it (see above). Its scheduled re-exposure to modern viewers after so many years of being kept out of sight will at least help dent if not wholly dispel the still frequent misconception in the popular mind that a majority of Fuseli's paintings tend to be dark and lacking in colour-appeal. It is also time to recognise that Fuseli's first painting was rapidly followed by a substantial number of other documented but hitherto unlocated pictures that fill the assumed void of such productions between 1768 and 1779. More on this painting

He produced no landscapes—"Damn Nature! she always puts me out" was his characteristic exclamation—and painted only two portraits. However, similar to contemporary landscape painters such as J.M.W. Turner. he evoked qualities of terror and the sublime.

After a life of uninterrupted good health he died at the house of the Countess of Guildford on Putney Hill, at the age of 84, and was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. He was comparatively wealthy at the time of his death. More on Henry Fuseli

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