1. Gothic Nightmares explores the work of Henry Fuseli and William Blake in the context of the Gothic – the taste for fantastic and supernatural themes which dominated British culture from around 1770 to 1830.

2. Henry Fuseli The Nightmare exhibited 1782 Oil on canvas, 1210 x 1473 x 89 mm Lent by the Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mr and Mrs Bert L. Smokler and Mrs Lawrence A.
FleischmanThis painting created a sensation when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in What is the subject of this painting? We may never be sure; Fuseli wanted his picture to intrigue us. The leering imp may embody the physical effects of a nightmare, or be an emblem of sexual desire. Is this picture an allegory, an illustration of a literary source, or something more personal?

3. William Blake Plate 33 from Jerusalem
(copy 'A'), printed around 1820 Relief etching, uncoloured © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum
This print shows the motif of The Nightmare being stretched and reinterpreted in the most radical and complex way. It is from the original ‘illuminated’ version of Blake’s poem Jerusalem. The lower scene shows the female figure of Jerusalem laying flat, with the ‘insane and most deform’d’ Spectre evoked by the text hovering over her.

4. Henry Fuseli, Prometheus Pen and ink on paper, 150 x 222 mm Lent by the Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett
This is an example of the results of the ‘five-point’ drawing games Fuseli and his friends engaged in while in Rome The game involved placing dots in a random pattern on a sheet and joining these with the head and extremities of a drawn figure. Some of these dots are still visible here. The essence of the game was speed and facility, rather than plodding correctness.

5. Richard Cosway Prometheus circa Pen and brown ink on paper, 225 x184 mm Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

6. Thomas Banks The Falling Titan 1786 Marble 838 x 902 x 584 mm Lent by the Royal Academy of Arts, LondonCast from the heavens, a rebellious Titan crashes through rocks while a tiny satyr and goat flee for their lives. According to classical mythology, the giant Titans had sought to overthrow heaven but their revolution failed and they were hurled to earth to make way for Zeus and his family. Banks was a close friend of Fuseli. Although this work is highly refined in its execution, it shows their shared interest in strange and savage themes.

7. William Blake The Punishment of The Thieves Chalk, pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 372 x 527 mm This drawing represents the ‘Punishment of the Thieves’ that Dante and Virgil witness in the eighth circle of Hell, described in Cantos 24 and 25 of Dante’s Inferno ( ). Here, punished souls are attacked by snakes and transformed into monstrous serpents. Blake makes the most of the possibilities for grotesque spectacle offered by the medieval poet.

8. Theodore Von Holst Frontispiece to Mary Shelley, Frankenstein published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831 Steel engraving in book 93 x 71 mm Private collection, Bath
This is the first illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, originally published in Von Holst’s design evokes the heroic, heavy-limbed figures of Fuseli. The setting, with its dramatic lighting and medieval tracery, is thoroughly Gothic in style.

9. Henry Fuseli The Witches Show Macbeth the Descendants of Banquo (Die Hexen zeigen Macbeth Banquos Nachkommen) 1773/1779 Pen and wash on paper, 360 x 420 mm © 2006 Kunsthaus, Zürich. All rights reserved. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is shown a vision of the future by the three witches: a procession of the eight kings who will descend from his rival Banquo, the last holding up a mirror that throws light into Macbeth’s eyes. This design was created in 1773 and reworked while the artist was briefly revisiting his home town of Zürich in It was almost certainly a compositional study for a spectacular painting (now lost) that Fuseli exhibited in London in 1777.

10. Henry Fuseli Buoncante da Montefeltro circa Pen and ink and wash 475 x 353 mm © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum
Fuseli renders a scene of spiritual conflict from Dante’s Purgatory ( ) as a grandiose physical drama. Buonconte da Montefeltro was killed in battle in 1289, during Italy’s bloody civil wars. In Dante’s account, good and evil angels vie for his body briefly, but his soul is saved because of one final tear of repentance. This is the scene that Fuseli dramatizes

11. Henry Fuseli Satan Starting from the Touch of Ithuriel's Spear (Satan flieht, von Ithuriels Speer beruht) 1779 Oil on canvas, 2305 x 2763 mm Milton’s Satan, represented here as a heroically-proportioned figure, leaps back from the slightest touch of the angel Ithuriel’s spear. He protects Adam and Eve, who slumber in each other’s arms at the bottom of the composition. This canvas was exhibited by Fuseli at the Royal Academy in It was one of the works which made his reputation as a painter of infernal subject-matter.
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his Spear Touch’d lightly; for no falsehood can endure Touch of Celestial temper, but returns Of force to its own likeness: up he starts Discoverd and surpriz’d. As when a spark Lights on a heap of nitrous Powder, laid Fit for the Tun some Magazin to store Against a rumord Warr, the Smuttie graine With sudden blaze diffus’d, inflames the Aire: So started up in his own shape the Fiend. John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667, Book IV, ll

12. James Barry Satan and his Legions Hurling Defiance Toward The Vault of Heaven circa Etching,and engraving 746 x 504 mm © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum
In a scene from Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Satan and his troops, having been expelled from Heaven for their rebellion, glare back from Hell and rage against God. Barry has used a low viewpoint and strong tonal contrasts to emphasise the heroic proportions of Satan. His rugged, unconventional printmaking technique enhances this characterization.

13. after Henry Fuseli Satan Summoning his Legions, engraved illustration to John Milton, Paradise Lost published by F.I. du Roveray 1802 Engraving in a bound volume 114 x 88 mm Private collection, London
Satan has been expelled from heaven, and here conjures up his demonic army. This is one of six small engravings executed after designs by Fuseli, illustrating a new edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). Fuseli was all too aware of the irony in seeing his vast ambitions reduced to little illustrations such as this.

14. Henry Fuseli Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed Head Oil on canvas, 1630 x 1300 mm Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington
Shakespeare’s Macbeth has asked the ‘Weird Sisters’ to predict whether he will become king. The apparition of an helmeted head warns, ‘Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff’, referring to his political rival. Fuseli noted that he had made the features of the spectral head resemble Macbeth’s own: would not this make a powerful impression on your mind?
“THUNDER. FIRST APPARITION: AN ARMED HEAD.
MACBETH. Tell me, thou unknown power-
FIRST WITCH. He knows thy thought: Hear his speech, but say thou nought.
FIRST APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff, Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.”
-William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606), Act 1, Scene 3

15. William Blake Lear and Cordelia in Prison circa 1779 Pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 123 x 175 mm Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
The ageing British king Lear lies sleeping on his daughter Cordelia’s lap while in prison. Lear’s willfulness has split the kingdom, and Cordelia laments the fate of her father and of the nation. This is one of a group of drawings by Blake dealing with British history made around His source for this scene though was Nahum Tate’s reworking of Shakespeare’s King Lear (1681).

16. John British Dixon after Joshua Reynolds Ugolino 1773 Mezzotint 505 x 615 mm © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum
This print reproduces Reynolds’ painting of the imprisonment of Count Ugolino de Gherardeschi (d.1288), from Dante’s Inferno ( ). Thrown into prison after a political intrigue, Ugolino was left to starve along with two of his sons and two grandchildren. The painting represents the moment when he hears the door being permanently sealed, and he is suddenly awakened to his dreadful fate. He will eventually commit a horrid act of cannibalism.

17. John Runciman The Three Witches circa Ink and body colour on prepared laid paper, 235 x 248 mm Lent by the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
This fluently-executed design probably shows the three witches from Shakespeare’s Mabceth (1606), clustered together in wicked conspiracy. John Runciman made a profound impression on his contemporaries during his short life. With his brother Alexander, he was among the first artists to treat Shakespeare as the source of heroic subjects, presenting scenes and characters freed from the trappings of stage presentations.

18. Alexander Runciman The Witches show Macbeth The Apparitions circa Pen and brown ink over pencil on paper, 616 x 460 mm Lent by the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
The tragic Scottish king Macbeth is subjected to the alarming sight of the three witches casting the spells that will conjure prophetic visions. The drawing seems to compress the images drawn by the famous spell of the three witches - ‘Double double toil and trouble’ – with the culminating dance around the cauldron: ‘Like elves and fairies in a ring’.

19. Henry Fuseli The Weird Sisters or The Three Witches 1783 Oil on canvas, 650 x 915 mm Lent by the Kunsthaus, Zürich (gift of the city of Zürich) In one of his best-known compositions, Fuseli presents a dramatically stylized portrayal of the three witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606). This painting was exhibited in A critic of the time commented: ‘He draws correctly, but his Imagination, impetuous but not full, is the most incorrect Thing imaginable!’.
BANQUO. What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand me, By each at once her choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.
-William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606), Act 1, scene 3

20. Robert Thew after Henry Fuseli Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus and the Ghost Published 29 September 1796 Stipple engraving on paper, 500 x 635 mm © 2006 Kunsthaus, Zürich. All rights reserved.
In a moonlit scene at the castle of Elsinor, Hamlet breaks from his friend Horatio’s hold and thrusts himself in the direction of the mysterious apparition of his dead father. This engraving was one of the painter’s most admired images.

21. William Blake Hamlet and his Father's Ghost 1806 Pen and grey ink, and grey wash, with watercolour 307 x 185 mm © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum
This represents Hamlet meeting the ghost of his father, in the scene of Shakespeare’s play where the apparition tells his son the gloomy truth about the incestuous and horrid plots surrounding him. While Blake painted extended series of illustrations of Dante and Milton, he represented subjects from Shakespeare infrequently. When he did, his designs, as here, tended to take on a relatively conventional format.

22. James Gillray A Phantasmagoria – Scene – Conjuring-up an Armed Skeleton 5 January 1803 image: 279 x 245 mm With permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford
The three witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) are shown wearing the features of contemporary opposition politicians, including Charles James Fox. The print criticises the Peace of Amiens made with France in 1802, which was perceived as sacrificing Britain’s interests. The feigned oval suggests that the whole scene may be a phantasmagorical projection of the type popular at this time.

23. William Blake The House of Death 1795/circa 1805 Colour print finished in ink and watercolour on paper, 485 x 610 mm Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939 The subject is taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Book X In a vision presented to Adam, Death hovers over a plague-house, dart in hand, teasing his victims with the promise of eternal sleep but letting them suffer further.