Title
The Nightmare
Description
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischmann. Fuseli was not popular with the English critics. One writer said that his 1780 entry in the London Royal Academy exhibition ought to be destroyed, and Horace Walpole called another painting in 1785 shockingly mad, mad, mad, madder than ever. Even after achieving the highest official acknowledgment of his talents, Fuseli was called the Wild Swiss and Painter to the Devil. But the public appreciated his work, and The Nightmare, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1782, was repeated in at least three more versions and its imagery was disseminated through prints published by commercial engravers. One of these prints would later hang in the office of the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who believed that dreams were manifestations of the dreamers repressed desires.
Creator
John Henry Fuseli
Source
Stokstad, Marilyn
Art History, 4th ed., Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Pearson Education, 2010 (9780205800377)
Publisher
Department of Visual Studies
University at Buffalo
Date
1781
CE
Contributor
Joe Easterly
Rights
Type
oil paintings (visual works)
paintings (visual works)
Still Image
Identifier
VS457199X
vw-20100831-1
Date Created
2011-09-02
Date Modified
2011-09-02
Is Part Of
Visual Resources Collection
VS001
Extent
39 3/4 x 49 1/2
Medium
oil on canvas
Spatial Coverage
The Detroit Institute of Arts.
Audience
AHI101
UB Only
Collection
Tags
Citation
John Henry Fuseli, “The Nightmare,” Digital Collections - University at Buffalo Libraries, accessed March 4, 2025, https://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/index.php/items/show/36145.