The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli - 1781 - 101,6 × 127 cm Detroit Institute of Arts The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli - 1781 - 101,6 × 127 cm Detroit Institute of Arts

The Nightmare

oil on canvas • 101,6 × 127 cm
  • Henry Fuseli - February 7, 1741 - April 17, 1825 Henry Fuseli 1781

Henri Fuseli was a Swiss painter and writer, known also as Johann Heinrich Füssli (the German version of his name). The Nightmare remains the artist's best-known work. A number of contemporary critics found the work scandalous due to its sexual themes, which have since been interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Freudian ideas about the unconscious. The canvas seems to portray simultaneously a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary beliefs and folklore about nightmares.