Triumph of Death: Three Skeletons Invading a Bacchanal Orchestrated by a Magician or an Evil Demon
1770–71
Medium
Graphite, with brush and gray wash, on cream laid paper (left sheet); graphite, pen and black ink, and brush and reddish-gray wash, on ivory laid paper (right sheet), joined and laid down on ivory Japanese paper, edge mounted on cream card
Dimensions
Both sides: 35.7 × 57.2 cm (14 1/16 × 22 9/16 in.); Secondary support: 42 × 36.9 cm (16 9/16 × 14 9/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
151454
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Fuseli often dwelled on the macabre and the sensational, as in this drawing, and occasionally allowed his unconscious mind to dictate his subject matter. “For if these images so pursue us when our minds are in a kind of waking dream,” he wrote, “why should we not use this vice of the mind?” Fuseli’s art played a role in his age’s taste for the Gothic. It was an era that saw the emergence of distinctly modern forms of cultural consumption: romances, sentimental novels and, most important, Gothic...
About the Artist
Henry Fuseli · 1741–1825
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), born Johann Heinrich Füssli in Zürich, was a Swiss-British painter whose visionary works exploring dreams, nightmares, and psychological terror made him one of the most original figures of the Romantic movement. His art bridged Neoclassical discipline with Romantic emotionalism, creating images of supernatural intensity that would influence artists from William Blake to t...