Henry Fuseli was the adopted name of Johann Heinrich Fussli, the son of a portrait painter, Johann Caspar Füssli (1707-82).

Originally trained as a priest; he took holy orders in 1761, but never practiced. In 1765 he came to London at the suggestion of the British Ambassador in Berlin, who had been impressed by his drawings. He encouraged Fuseli to take up painting, and Fuseli spent the years 1770-78 in Italy, engrossed in the study of Michelangelo, whose elevated style he sought to emulate for the rest of his life.

On his return Henry Fuseli exhibited highly imaginative works such as The Nightmare, the picture that secured his reputation when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1782 (there is another version in the Goethe-museum, Frankfurt). An unforgettable image of a woman in the throes of a violently erotic dream, the painting showed how far ahead of his time Fuseli was in exploring the murky areas of the psyche where sex and fear meet.

The masterpiece below depicts a scene of the Norse god Thor fighting the dragon, or serpent, of Middlegard. This work was created in 1795, and I offer reproductions of it at my online store.

Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent

Fuseli's fascination with the horrifying and fastastic also comes out in many of his literary subjects, which formed a major part of his output. The London theatre, and in particular the productions of Shakespeare, charged his imagination and over the years he painted, etched and drew numerous scenes from the plays. After a prolific and successful career as an artist in England, he died in 1825.