D: Art
Erik, Nicole, Gaelen
The Nightmare
Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” depicts a woman, asleep, and an incubus, the male counterpart of the succubus, on top of her. She is wearing a white dress and a gold necklace with flowing blonde hair. The demon is very monkey like in size, shape and colour. He has horns twisting above his head and a face of anger. The background is made up of red drapes and a black horse peeking in.
Fuseli was a perfect example of the thinkers of the time. He was inspired by many of the classical works of art and they showed in this painting. The horse is inspired by the “Horse Tamers” in Rome and the girl’s pose was taken from Giulio Romano’s painting “Sleeping Psyche.” Although inspiration from many other pieces are present in Fuseli’s painting. The fact that he was inspired by art from such a long time ago shows how Fuseli along with all of victorian Britain wanted to rediscover the culture of old. This desire saw many other artists to seek inspiration from the classics. They viewed classical culture as great, maybe even superior to their own. He also viewed victorian Britain as a brutal, cutthroat place as represented by the incubus. The evil preyed on the good and innocent, represented by the girl in the white dress. The evil is only out for their own good and will hurt the innocent to get it.
Source: Take Britain [2000], The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli, Sunday Telegraph "In The Picture" Retrieved from http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/readarticle/48
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
Saturn Devouring One of His Children
The portrait “Saturn Devouring His Son”, painted on the wall of Francisco Goya’s home, is one of the 14 Black Paintings that Goya illustrated in the later years of his life. It depicts a Roman God, Saturn, eating one of his children. Saturn was a divine being, accompanied with the fear that one of his children would overthrow him. In response, he would devour his children so they could not betray him. Saturn is depicted as a god of evil, a monster for destroying the life of something good and innocent.
In the 19th century, there was a wild stigma that dealt with the matters of insanity and dementia. Psychiatric wards were not uncommon, and anyone could be admitted to a ward for showing even the slightest symptoms. Goya demonstrates his “fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on human life” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings) in these 14 paintings, which was a frequent fear for the humans of the 19th century. Psychiatric disorders ranged from dementia to eating disorders, and methods of testing for these disorders were beyond cruel. Scientists believed that you could determine the criminality of an individual just by the shape of their brain or muscle contractions in the face (http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/19th-and-20th-century-psychiatry-22-rare-photos/5/). Ailments were also thought to be treated with the use of electricity. Today, the concept of filicide is widly remarked as grotesque and inhumane, and so to depict pieces of art and literature in the manner that 19th century artists and writers could is a matter out of the question.