A woman in white lies sprawled across a bed while a grotesque demon squats on her chest, and a horse's head with blank eyes pushes through the curtains. Fuseli made the nightmare visible; shown in 1782, the painting caused a sensation in London and became a classic of Gothic horror.
Key facts
- Artist
- Henry Fuseli1741–1825 · Swiss
- Date
- 1781
- Period
- Romanticism1790–1850
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 101.6 × 127 cm
- Location
- Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit, United States
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#0C0A10#413333#D1C4BD#7E7068Background
Born in Switzerland, Fuseli settled in London and loved to paint the supernatural scenes of Shakespeare and Milton. The Nightmare was shown at the Royal Academy in 1782, where visitors were both shocked and fascinated.
It was soon engraved and widely sold, earning the publisher a fortune. Fuseli painted several more versions, and the image became a favourite target of political cartoonists.
At the height of the rational Enlightenment, the painting plunged into the irrational world of dreams and the unconscious, and is seen as a forerunner of Romanticism.
Technique & composition
The woman's white gown and skin glow intensely against the dark background; her body arches back, her head and arm hanging over the edge of the bed, a pose both vulnerable and erotic. Light falls on her while the demon and horse half-emerge from the shadows.
The composition is simple and theatrical, like a scene on stage. The deep red curtains, golden bedclothes and white gown create strong contrasts of colour.
Details
Symbolism
The demon on her chest
The creature squatting on her chest is an incubus of folklore, believed to sit on sleepers at night, suffocating them and causing bad dreams. Today medicine calls the experience sleep paralysis.
The night “mare”
The “mare” in “nightmare” originally meant a goblin that sat on sleepers, but it looks like the word for a female horse. Fuseli made a visual pun with .
Desire and fear
The painting mixes terror and eroticism. Some scholars link it to Fuseli's unrequited love for a young woman named Anna Landolt; on the back of the canvas is an unfinished portrait of a young woman, possibly her.
Stories
- Did you know?
Sigmund Freud is said to have had an engraving of the painting in his Vienna apartment; it is seen as an early visual exploration of dreams and the unconscious.
- Did you know?
The scene of Elizabeth lying dead across her bed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is often thought to echo the painting; Shelley's mother had known Fuseli.
Legacy
The Nightmare inaugurated the tradition of painting dreams and the unconscious, influencing Goya, Blake and the Surrealists of the twentieth century. It remains a constantly quoted image in horror films and Gothic literature.
