How The Nightmare Painting Influenced Frankenstein and The Fall of The House of Usher

In my research, I’ve come across this painting so. many. times. It is a piece of art that’s absolutely terrifying. Today I decided to look up its history. And guess what? The Nightmare painting may have inspired some of my favorite pieces of horror. 

Painter Henry Fuseli was born as Johann Heinrich Füssli in Zurich, Switzerland, on February 7th 1741. Notably, he was the second of 18 children. His father and several of his siblings were also painters. Fuseli is known for his supernatural works. 

The Nightmare was painted by Henry Fuseli in 1781. At the time, it was thought of as shockingly erotic. Historians point to Fuseli’s love interest at the time. It was fairly well known that he had a thing for Anna Landholdt, and wrote of his fantasies of her. But the interest was one sided. Soon after his rejected proposal, Anna married someone else. The angst represented in The Nightmare could very well be a portrayal of unrequited love. There is an unfinished painting of a woman on the back of the same canvas, which some believe was a sketch of Anna. 

An alternate theory was put forth by Marcia Allentuck in her 1972 book Woman as Sex Object. Allentuck believes that The Nightmare is a depiction of a female orgasm. Others believe it’s a visualization of the male libido. It’s important to note that Fuseli’s private drawings and paintings were often pornographic in nature. Making The Nightmare seem quite tame in comparison. 

Regardless of its intended meaning, the painting was so popular that he would paint several different versions of it. So popular that it was likely that Mary Shelley was aware of it (per parents knew Fuseli). In fact, it is generally believed that it influenced, in part, Frankenstein. Specifically the moment in the novel when the monster murders Victor’s Wife. “She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by hair." But some believe the connections between Henry Fuseli and Frankenstein are even more personal, and draw comparisons between the plot of the novel and Fuseli’s life. 

The novel and Henry Fuseli’s biography share similar themes. Fuseli’s incubus from the painting reflects the artist’s emotional response to Anna Landholdt marrying another man (allegedly). In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the monster vows to take revenge on Victor on his wedding night. In both cases, the supernatural figure represents an attempt to prevent or disrupt a marriage.

Others have also drawn comparisons between The Nightmare and Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Fall of The House of Usher. In the story, the narrator compares a painting to a Fuseli piece, and says "irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm.” Seems pretty telling if you ask me. 

But The Nightmare isn’t the only scary painting that Fuseli is known for. Might I suggest his diploma work for the Royal Academy, titled Thor Battering The Midiguard Serpent from 1970. Or Lady MacBeth Stealing The Daggers from 1810 (pictured above).

I really enjoy this quote from William Michael Rosetti, describing Fuseli’s work in the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica: “His figures are full of life and earnestness, and seem to have an object in view which they follow with intensity. Like Rubens, he excelled in the art of setting his figures in motion. Though the lofty and terrible was his proper sphere, Fuseli had a fine perception of the ludicrous. The grotesque humour of his fairy scenes, especially those taken from A Midsummer-Night's Dream, is in its way not less remarkable than the poetic power of his more ambitious works.”