From the artist's life
The Nightmare, with its demon crouched on a sleeping woman, so haunted audiences that Fuseli painted several versions; a print of it reportedly hung in Freud's apartment.
Source: Wikipedia / WikimediaRomanticism
Henry Fuseli
Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) was a Swiss-born Romantic painter who specialised in the dark, the dreamlike and the supernatural. His nightmarish The Nightmare became a sensation and an emblem of the irrational.
Fuseli's obsession with dream and terror anticipated Symbolism, Surrealism and the modern fascination with the unconscious.
- Painted The Nightmare, a sensation of horror and the erotic uncanny.
- Drew on Shakespeare, Milton and his own feverish imagination.
- A forerunner of Symbolism and the art of the unconscious.
Key works
Where to start
Complete list of key works
Works with a dedicated ArtAtlas page are highlighted in gold.
- The NightmareOn ArtAtlas
- Thor Battering the Midgard SerpentListed for reference
- Titania and BottomListed for reference
- DidoListed for reference
- The Vision of Catherine of AragonListed for reference
- Lady Macbeth Seizing the DaggersListed for reference
- The sleepwalking Lady MacbethListed for reference
- Bodmer und Füssli vor der Büste HomersListed for reference
- The Oath on the RütliListed for reference
- The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland WitchesListed for reference
- Falstaff in the Laundry BasketListed for reference
- The artist's despair before the grandeur of ancient ruinsListed for reference
1781
The Nightmare
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 looks on as a demonic and ape-like incubus crouches on her chest.