Johann Heinrich Fuseli
(February 7, 1741 - April 17, 1825) |
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portraiture, mythological narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Johann Heinrich Fuseli |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Zurich, Switzerland |
| Nationality: |
German-Swiss |
| Birth: |
February 7, 1741 |
| Death: |
April 17, 1825 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
portraiture, mythological narratives |
| Medium: |
oil painting |
| Method: |
oil painting |
| Style: |
Romanticism |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
Draughtsman
Writer |
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Biography
Johann Heinrich Fuseli was a history painter of heroic, and often gruesome and ghoulish, literary themes, also a prolific draughtsman. He was born in Zurich in 1741. The artist died London in 1825.
The artist was the son of a cultured Swiss family and trained for the Church. He was friendly with Lavater, who had a great influence on him. He had a very broad classical education, with a wide knowledge of World Literature. He translated Macbeth into German as a young man, and Macbeth always played a central role in his imagination.He was the apostle of the German Sturm und Drang movement in England, where he came in 1764 and translated into English in 1765. Winckelmann's Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks. His amateur drawings impressed Reynolds who urged him to take up painting, but he never had a proper academical and technical training, so that the condition of most of his pictures has sadly deteriorated.
He studied in Rome 1770-1778 with visits to Venice and Naples and concentrated on Antiquity and those aspects of Michelangelo which set the canon for expressive Mannerism, but the themes which obsessed him were mostly from Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, Ossian, Wieland, & and he contrived a highly romantic neoclassic idiom for illustrating such themes.He was much the most mature mind and leading spirit among the British artists in Rome during these years and had a profound influence on some of them, notably Alexander Runciman.
He became Professor of Painting at the RA in 1799 and Keeper in 1804, and his lectures had a considerable influence on those who were students after 1800. He made the largest contribution (from 1786 onwards) to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, and he also produced his own Milton Gallery (of forty-nine subjects) in 1799. His works also became known from numerous engravings. He was one of the few serious artists who was friendly with Blake, and he was also on good terms with most of his Academy colleagues, although his scholarship was far above theirs. He had an undoubted predilection for bizarre themes, and his neo classicism was much more a European than an English style. His work is most fully represented in the Zurich Gallery. His lectures and other writings were published by John Knowles in 1831. |
Samples of Work
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