Henry Fuseli, original name Johann Heinrich Füssli, (born February 7, 1741, Zürich, Switzerland—died

April 16, 1825, Putney Hill, London, England), Swiss-born artist whose paintings are among the most
dramatic, original, and sensual works of his time.

Fuseli was reared in an intellectual and artistic milieu and initially studied theology. Obliged to flee
Zürich because of political entanglements, he went first to Berlin, and then settled in London in 1764. He
was encouraged to become a painter by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and he left England in 1770 to study in
Italy, where he stayed until 1778. During his stay in Rome he studied the works of Michelangelo and
classical art, which became his major stylistic influences.

Fuseli is famous for his paintings and drawings of nude figures caught in strained and violent poses
suggestive of intense emotion. He also had a penchant for inventing macabre fantasies, such as that
in The Nightmare (1781). Always drawn to literary and theatrical subjects, Fuseli developed a special
interest in illustrating Shakespeare. He was one of the original contributing artists to John Boydell’s
Shakespeare Gallery, for which he painted a number of works (1786–89). He had a noticeable influence
on the style of his younger contemporary, William Blake.

Fuseli was born in Zurich on 6 February 1741, the second son of the five children of Johann Caspar Füseli
and Elisabeth Waser. Although educated as a theologian and ordained as a Zwinglian minister in 1761,
Fuseli pursued a wide range of humanist studies, developing an enthusiasm for classical philology under
the influence of Johann Jakob Breitinger, and becoming proficient in English, French, and Italian. He was
introduced by Johann Jakob Bodmer, the mentor whom he most revered, to Homer, the Nibelungenlied,
Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, later the principal sources of his art. His associations with the Sturm
und Drang movement were close. Forced, with Lavater, to leave Zurich in 1763 after publishing a
pamphlet critical of the administration, he traveled in Germany, England, and France, embarking on a
literary career.

Encouraged by Reynolds in 1768 to become a painter, Fuseli traveled to Italy in 1770 in the company of
John Armstrong. He sought inspiration from classical sculpture, Michelangelo, and mannerist art, and,
befriended by the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel, became the leading spirit of a group of
innovative young artists. Returning to London in 1780, Fuseli established his reputation with The
Nightmare. Involved from the outset in 1786 with John Boydell's scheme for employing the most
talented artists of the day on a Shakespeare Gallery, he devoted most of his time to paintings of
Shakespearean themes until the opening of the gallery in 1789. In emulation of this project, he executed
during the 1790s forty-seven paintings for a Milton Gallery in which the work was entirely his. Although
many of these works were bought by his principal patron, Thomas Coutts, the exhibitions in 1799 and
1800 were not a public success.

Fuseli was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1788, a full Academician in 1790, and
Professor of Painting in 1799; he was obliged to relinquish the latter post after his election as Keeper in
1804, the year in which Benjamin Robert Haydon became his pupil, but the statutes were altered to
allow him to resume it in 1810.
Fuseli's relationships with and attitude to women were highly important for his art. His most passionate
love was for Anna Landolt, a niece of Lavater, whom he met in Zurich in 1778; but her father refused his
suit. He married in 1788 Sophia Rawlins, an attractive young model obsessed with hair and fashion, who
was socially and intellectually his inferior; there were no children, but she appears to have satisfied her
husband's fetishistic and other desires. Mary Wollstonecraft's passion for him in 1792 was firmly put
down by Mrs. Fuseli. Fuseli died suddenly on 16 April 1825, at the home on Putney Hill of Coutt's
daughter, Lady Guilford, and was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.