Latest Posts by velumnoctis - Page 7
Some pretty pictures I found from my trip to Scotland. Castle Eileen Donan.
“I found myself, in truth, on the brink of the valley of the sad abyss that gathers the thunder of an infinite howling. It was so dark, and deep, and clouded, that I could see nothing by staring into its depths.”
Dante, Inferno.
FUSELI, John Henry Swiss painter (b. 1741, Zürich, d. 1825, London) Romanticism The Nightmare 1790-91 Oil on canvas, 77 x 64 cm Goethe-Museum, Frankfurt
Fuseli did a total of four variations on The Nightmare, probably his best-known theme. The example in Frankfurt is the second variation. Though the motif was not inspired by any specific literary model, it would be unthinkable without a knowledge of ghost stories, especially English ones. The figure of the woman lying asleep or unconscious is extremely elongated and distorted, not because Fuseli could do no better, but in order to visualize the horrible oppressiveness of the gnome crouched on the woman’s breast, a nightmare and incarnation of unconscious terrors. In the gap between the curtains in the background appears the ghostly head of a blind horse, which anticipates the demoniac aspect given this animal especially in later French Romanticism.
