Two Heads of Damned Souls from Dante's "Inferno" (recto and verso)
1770–78
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Edges irregular, approx.: 40.6 × 29.8 cm (16 × 11 3/4 in.); Framed: 52.3 × 41.6 cm (20 9/16 × 16 3/8 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
116101
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Henry Fuseli created the expressive head studies on each side of this unprimed canvas using strategically placed highlights and deep shadows built up of thin washes. The artist probably painted these oil sketches while living in Italy between 1770 and 1778. Both images were engraved as illustrations for Johann Caspar Lavater’s influential book on physiognomy, a popular pseudoscience that assessed an individual’s character based on their outward appearance. According to that text, the heads were ...
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...