Thursday, October 6, 2005

Strange Fuseli Painting

I found this image last night while researching Fuseli. (You can click on the image to make it larger.) The page it was on did not have a title, nor did it have descriptive text about the painting. Does anyone know anything about this painting, such as the title, and the story behind it? Fuseli seemed to have had a penchant for painting or drawing women in a limp laying position, such as that seen here and also in "The Nightmare".

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks to me like this one is dead.

Could it be a scene from Hamlet.

Anonymous said...

It looks almost like a book illustration. The picture certainly tells a story.

I have not seen the picture before, and my best guess is that it belongs to his famous Shakespeare Gallery.

Fuseli also did a picture gallery on Milton's work, but this scene does not look like something coming from a Milton story.

Fuseli was also inspired by German and Nordic tales, but I still beleive this is a scene from a Shakespeare play.

Anonymous said...

Hi Beard and Change,

I've looked all over the internet and can't find a description anywhere, but I do agree that it looks like something from Shakespeare.

Now I'll probably obsess on it until I find out the name. :) Well, I am going to a library tomorrow so I'll have a chance to see if they have any books of illustrations.

I find that not only are Fuseli's illustrations interesting to gaze at, but many artists' illustrations and engravings as well. They all have their own charm, many of them haunting.

If I were to give it a short story, I'd say that they were locked-up somewhere in a castle dungeon, perhaps. To the lower right appears to be a dead man. The woman also looks dead. The look on the man's face on the left looks like he is not far off from death, either. The man holding the woman appears to be in a state of sorrow for the dead woman. Perhaps they were dying of hunger or a plague of some sort.

Does anyone else have their own version?

Anonymous said...

If it's a painting of a scene of Shakespeare's, then my guess is King Lear. [SPOILER] If I'm not mistaken, Lear's faithful daughter commits suicide because he thinks she's unfaithful, and there's a scene in which Lear carries her body and laments her death.

Anonymous said...

"I've looked all over the internet and can't find a description anywhere, but I do agree that it looks like something from Shakespeare."
Could be Macbeth being desperate and sorry about his wife's insanity.

Anonymous said...

I think the female has to be a child though, because she looks kinda' small compared to the man who's holding her.