Henry Fuseli - The Nightmare

Painted shortly after his return from Italy, The Nightmare was first shown to the public in
1782 at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy. An instant success, it established
Fuseli's reputation as one of the most creative artists in London. To exploit the painting's
popularity a low-priced engraving of the picture was rapidly completed by Thomas Burke,
and widely distributed. Fuseli himself later produced three other versions of the painting,
including a smaller one now in the Goethe Museum, Frankfurt. The Nightmare was the first
of a string of surrealist compositions which included: Titania Caresses Bottom with Donkey's
Head (1794, Kunsthaus Zurich) and The Night-Hag visiting the Lapland Witches (1796,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
The Nightmare was one of the first paintings to depict an idea rather than an event, a story
or a person. Indeed, it may even be a complicated visual pun on the word "nightmare". Thus,
the canvas shows a sleeping woman - draped helplessly over the end of her bed - as well as
the content of her "nightmare" - namely, an ape-like incubus squatting on top of her. In
addition, the image of a horse protruding from the shadows may illustrate a second meaning
of the picture's title - "night-mare". Thirdly, the demon may be intended to represent a "mara"
- that is, a spirit sent to torment and/or suffocate innocent sleepers. The point is, the word
"nightmare" derives from "mara" the Old English word for "incubus". [Source: Concise Oxford
English Dictionary.]

However, the exact meaning and symbolism of these images remains elusive, as the artist
never revealed his precise intentions. The many questions raised include: What is the
meaning of the woman's helpless pose, for instance? Is there a sexual significance of some
kind, in the placement of the incubus on top of her? Some art critics believe that the painting
was inspired by Germanic legends about demons who possessed people as they slept. In
these tales, men were visited by horses or witches, while women were believed on occasion
to have sex with the devil. Others believe that The Nightmare illustrates the artist's
unrequited love for Anna Landholdt, a woman he met a few years before, while travelling in
Europe. In this interpretation the sleeping woman is Landholdt, while he is the incubus. Cited
in support of this theory is an unfinished portrait of a girl (believed to be Landholdt) which is
on the back of the canvas.

We do know that Fuseli used 'sleep' and 'dreams' as regular themes in his paintings and
pen-and-ink drawings. One of his earliest pictures is Joseph interpreting the Dreams of the
Pharaoh's Baker and Butler (1768, Private Collection), and others included The Shepherd's
Dream (1798, Tate Collection) and Richard III Visited by Ghosts (1798, drawing, British
Museum). Fuseli's choice and style of imagery was influenced by the art of classical antiquity
(incubus, horse), the Italian Renaissance (dreaming woman), and the German Renaissance
(horse), while his 18th century colour palette - the brilliance of the shroud-like white against
the sombre reds, yellows and ochres of the other elements - is reminiscent of Titian and
Venetian Colour Painting (1500-76). But its powerful mixture of horror, sexuality, and
surrealism is entirely down to Fuseli himself.