Skip to main content

Distributed for Reaktion Books

Creator of Nightmares

Henry Fuseli’s Art and Life

A critical biography of the eighteenth-century painter.
 
Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) was one of the eighteenth century’s most provocative and inventive artists. He is best known for his painting The Nightmare, which channeled a new form of gothic imagery for the Romantic age. This engaging study of the artist’s career unveils Fuseli’s complexities, navigating contradictions between literary and painted works, sacred and secular themes, and traditional patronage versus competitive exhibitions. Plotting Fuseli’s trajectory from Zurich to Paris, Rome, and ultimately London, Creator of Nightmares paints an image of Fuseli as an astute marketer and self-proclaimed genius who transformed himself from a priest to an Enlightenment writer, a mercurial force in the art world, and finally a revered teacher.

192 pages | 53 color plates, 21 halftones | 6.61 x 9.21 | © 2024

Art: Art--Biography

History: European History


Reaktion Books image

View all books from Reaktion Books

Reviews

"Creator of Nightmares is lean and engaging, in many ways an ideal introduction to the painter.

Wall Street Journal

"The Nightmare (1781) is one of the most recognisable paintings in art history, but, Baker notes, its creator is more of a mystery. Here, he makes a case for Fuseli being ‘one of the most provocative, inventive and fascinating artists’ of the late 18th century."

Apollo

"There is much to commend in this clear and scupulously researched biography: the author's deep familiarity with the whole corpus of Fuseli's works, his informed sense of the milieus in which Fuseli moved in London and in Rome, and his treatment of Fuseli's origins and early ambitions. This biography sends the reader back refreshed to the fascinating contrasts in the arts of the turn of the 19th century, host to both the daylight restraint of neoclassicism and the wild night-time riot of devils, witches, dreams and fire."

Literary Review

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press