Henry Fuseli

The Three Witches (1783)

Henry Fuseli (1741 – 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, who worked and spent most of his life in Britain. 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. His figures are full of life and earnestness, and seem to have an object in view which they follow with intensity. Like Rubens he excelled in the art of setting his figures in motion. Though the lofty and terrible was his proper sphere, Fuseli had a fine perception of the ludicrous. The grotesque humour of his fairy scenes, especially those taken from A Midsummer-Night's Dream, is in its way not less remarkable than the poetic power of his more ambitious works. I have already posted about his faqmous paintings entitled "Nightmare" HERE and HERE. In this post we will know some dark and supernatural Fuseli's works too.

Macbeth, Banquo and the witches on the heath

Satan and Death with Sin intervening

Satan and Death with Sin intervening

The Fairy Queen Titania and the donkey head Zettel, detail: Elfe (1793-94)

The fairy queen Titania caressing the donkey-headed Zettel (A Midsummer-Night's Dream) (1780-90)

Macbeth consulting the Vision of the Armed Head

The dream of the shepherd (1793)

Scene of Witches, from "The Masque of Queens" by Ben Jonson (1785)

Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers, 1810-12

Theodore Meets in the Wood the Spectre of His Ancestor Guido Cavalcanti (1783)

The Sin, followed by Death (1794-96)

Thor, in the boat of Hymir, battering the Midgard Serpent (1790)

The Night-Hag visiting Lapland Witches