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The Nightmare

Henry Fuseli, 1781

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, dated 1781, is held by the Detroit Institute of Arts. The canvas shows a sleeping woman with a crouching demon on her body and a ghostly horse's head pushing through the curtains. At about 101 by 127 centimetres, it is large enough to hold the room, so give yourself time to take in both the light and the shadows.

Where to see it

The Nightmare is in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Display arrangements at any museum can change because of rehanging, conservation or loans, so check the Detroit Institute of Arts' official website for the painting's current display status, opening hours and ticket information before you visit.

What to look for in person

The sleeping woman and the light

Start with the figure lying across the bed. Her body is thrown back, with her head and arms falling over the edge, and her pale dress catches most of the light in the picture. Notice how the brightness on her contrasts with the dark background. Fuseli uses this contrast to pull your eye straight to her helpless pose before you notice anything else. Step back and you will see how the long diagonal of her body organises the whole composition.

The demon on her chest

Then look at the squat, hunched creature sitting on the sleeper. It is usually identified as an incubus, a demon from folklore believed to weigh on sleepers and cause bad dreams. It turns its head outward, as if aware of the viewer, which makes you feel part of the scene rather than a distant observer. Compare its dark, compact shape with the soft, stretched-out figure beneath it. Fuseli builds much of the painting's unease from this clash of forms.

The horse in the curtains

In the upper left, a horse's head pushes through a parting in the drapery. Look closely at its pale, blank-looking eyes and flared nostrils, which give it an eerie, unreal quality. The horse is commonly read as a visual play on the word "nightmare", pairing the animal with the spirit of bad dreams. Notice that it seems to intrude from outside the room, adding a second presence to the scene and a sense that the dream is spilling into the real world.

About the painting

Henry Fuseli was a Swiss-born painter who made his career in Britain, and The Nightmare, dated 1781, is the work most often linked with his name. Rather than illustrating a particular story, the painting shows a state of mind: the frightening sensations of a bad dream, given visible form as a demon and a spectral horse around a sleeping woman. This focus on fear, dreams and the irrational sets it apart from the calm, ordered subjects many viewers expect from eighteenth-century painting, and it is often discussed as an early example of the dark, emotional imagery later associated with Romanticism. When you stand in front of the canvas, which measures about 101 by 127 centimetres, pay attention to how little actually happens. There is no action and no narrative scene, only a single, frozen moment. The effect comes from staging: the stage-like curtains, the strong light on the sleeper, and the two intruding creatures that seem to belong to a different world. The painting attracted wide attention, and Fuseli returned to the subject in other versions. Prints based on the image also helped make it widely recognisable, and it has been copied, parodied and referenced many times since. Seeing the original lets you judge things that reproductions tend to flatten, such as the depth of the shadows and the way the pale figure seems to glow against the dark room. Allow a few minutes to look at each part in turn, the woman, the demon and the horse, and then step back to see how they work together as one unsettling image.

Key facts

Sources

• Wikidata Q2317837