Fuseli, Henry
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- Fuseli, Henry
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(1741 - 1825), painter and polymath, s. of Johann Füssli of Zurich; Zwinglian minister 1761; in Germany 1763 with Lavater; England 1764; m. 1787 Sophia Rawlins; ARA 1788; RA 1790; prof. of painting RA 1799 - 1805, 1810 - , and Keeper 1804.
1770 - 8 [dep. London spring 1770] Genoa (Apr. 1770), Milan, Florence (by 19 May), Rome (May 1770 - Sep. 1778) with visits to Venice (1772), Naples (1775) and Turin (1776?); Bologna (Sep. 1778), Parma, Mantua, Milan [Zurich Oct. 1778, England Apr./May 1779]
Fuseli was nearly thirty when he went to Italy. He had already translated into English Winckelmann's Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, and was compiling a history of German verse; he was, as Lavater observed, 'an original; His look is lightning, his word a thunderstorm'.1 In 1768 Joshua Reynolds had encouraged him to take up painting and, with the help of the banker Coutts and Dr John Armstrong, Fuseli eventually set out for Italy in the spring of 1770. Armstrong sailed with him to Genoa, though their friendship was said not to have survived the voyage.2 Fuseli passed through Milan and Florence,3 before arriving in Rome in May 1770 (Dr Armstrong was then still with him).4 He remained there some eight years, and his recorded excursions were few. In 1772 he convalesced in Venice from a fever which left him white haired and with trembling hands; in 1775 he visited Naples, Herculaneum and Pompeii, and, apparently in 1776, he visited Turin with Allan Ramsay to view the work of 'a learned but uninspired' (and unnamed) painter.5 At Rome Fuseli lived some time in the Via Babuino (see C.H. Tatham) and in 1777 he was listed in the Strada Felice with John Rouby.6
He at once changed the spelling of his name (Füssli) to the Italianate Fuseli and embarked upon a series of strongly imaginative pictures, calculated to overturn 'the tripod from which Winckelmann, Lessing and Mengs promulgated their false and frigid oracles'.7 While continuing to study the living model, Fuseli looked at mannerist works by Parmigianino, Rosso and Bandinelli, but above all it was the work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel that provided his inspiration. In 1773 Thomas Banks described him as cutting 'the greatest figure' among the 'students in Painting': 'last season he had pictures bespoke to the amount of 1300 l., good encouragement for a student, yet nothing more than, from his great abilities, he is justly entitled to'.8 He became the centre of an international group of painters and sculptors in Rome, his adherents including John Brown, Banks, Barry, Northcote and Alexander Runciman, and the Scandinavians Sergel and Abildgaard. Fuseli took his subjects from Dante, Shakespeare, Homer and Greek tragedy (he was at the same time teaching himself classical Greek). In 1774 Father Thorpe had noticed him preparing to paint several scenes from Shakespeare, commenting that 'his imagination is fiery & excellent in what is terrible'.9 That year Fuseli sent for exhibition at the RA a drawing of The Death of Cardinal Beaufort, and in 1777 he showed a painting of Macbeth. At the end of his stay in Rome he was contemplating the decoration of a room with frescoes from Shakespeare, in imitation of the Sistine Chapel.
Fuseli left Rome in 1778 and in September was in Bologna,10 admiring the cloister of S.Michele in Bosco. He proceeded through Parma and Mantua, where he was much impressed by 'the contradictory character' of Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Te, and left Italy through Milan. He spent some time in Zurich, before returning to London in 1779. His Caricature of the Artist leaving Italy (Zurich) shows a nude antique hero defecating on Switzerland, while three mice, identified as Humphry, Romney and West, scuttle over England.
Fuseli was elected to the Accademia di S.Luca in 1816.
1. G. Schiff, J.H. F?ssli, 1:81. 2. See Fuseli Circle 1971, and Schiff (at n1), 1:73 - 86. Knowles, Fuseli, 1:46 - 56. 3. Gazz. Tosc. 4. Cf. D.H. Weinglass, Collected Letters of Fuseli, 10. 5. Farington Diary, 31 Dec. 1812. 6. AVR sa, S.Andrea delle Fratte. 7. E. Mason, Mind of Fuseli, 119. 8. Bell, Banks, 16. 9. Thorpe letters mss (15 Jan., 4 Jun. 1774). 10. Northcote Memorials, 142 - 3.