The Shepherd's Dream (Paradise Lost) (1793)
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Tate Britain, London
"Fairy elves, whose midnight revels by a forest side;
Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while over head the moon;
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth.
Wheel her pale course, they on their mirth and dance;
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Dad just didn't understand. John Fuseli wanted his son, Henry, to be a priest. But, after taking vows, Henry got tangled in a local dispute and fled to London.
Inspired by poetry and the theater, he painted over 80 works from Shakespeare's plays, including many in AR's repertoire:
Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest.
Fuseli was a genius at putting intangible concepts on canvas.
But (there's always a 'but' isn't there?) his early method of misting powdered tints directly on the canvas relied on accident for the end results. His subjects were often nightmarish and his figures twisted into grotesque contortions. In this painting based
on Milton's poem, Fuseli compares the fallen angels in Hell
to the fairies who bewitch a poor shepherd.
Oddly enough, the man who painted such troubled images lived a long, prosperous life and was buried
in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.
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(I always give permission, but it's still nice to ask first)