About this Event
Henry Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1782, is one of the most famous images in the history of art. It has been reproduced, imitated and lampooned innumerable times – including satirical prints produced in the painter’s lifetime, copies and variations by other artists through the nineteenth century, and multiple versions of the image in modern mass media, cinema and popular culture. This talk will review how Fuseli’s image has been repurposed and remediated, focusing on how it has hovered between “high” and “low”, the legitimate and the countercultural. Fuseli’s art will be considered in relation to the eighteenth-century exhibitions spectacle, the culture of the Gothic and related to the broader fears and uncertainties about art and society on the eve of modernity.
No prior art historical knowledge is necessary.
Georgian Provocations Series II is convened by Martin Postle, Senior Research Fellow, the Paul Mellon Centre.
Registration via Eventbrite is required and opens on 16 September. This series will take place in person at the Paul Mellon Centre and will also be streamed live via Zoom Webinar.
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Martin Myrone is Head of Grants, Fellowships and Networks at the Paul Mellon Centre. Before joining the Centre in 2020, Martin spent over twenty years in curatorial roles at Tate, London. His many exhibitions at Tate Britain have included Gothic Nightmares (2006), John Martin (2011), William Blake (2019) and Hogarth and Europe (2021). His research and publications have focused on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British art, with a special interest in artistic identity and artists’ labour, class, cultural opportunity and gender. His many published works include Bodybuilding: Reforming Masculinities in British Art 1750–1810 (2005) and Making the Modern Artist: Culture, Class and Art-Educational Opportunity in Romantic Britain (2020), both published by the Paul Mellon Centre.
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Image credit: Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781, oil on canvas, 101.7 x 127.1 cm. © Detroit Institute of Arts / Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Bert L. Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischmanf / Bridgeman Images
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Paul Mellon Centre and online, 16 Bedford Square, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00