Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Gothic Imagination

The 1770s were marked by the emergence of themes of violence, horror, and the supernatural in art: the birth of the Gothic. In 1782 the unveiling of Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare was met with a mixture of shock and fascination, and was followed by the cosmic visions of William Blake and the searing grotesque caricatures of James Gilray. While there have been several re-assessments of Gothic literature in recent years, Gothic Nightmares is the first serious consideration of these themes in visual art, from the 1770s up through the present.

Among the themes explored are: The Gothic Nightmare, examining Fuseli's famous painting in context; the sublime vision of the Gothic hero; the influence of literature and fantasy on art; visions of the apocalypse; and the obsession with scientific revelation that culminated in the vision of ultimate horror in Mary Shelley's man-made monster, Frankenstein.