Fuseli and the modern woman: fashion, fantasy, fetishism

Abstract

"Best known for his notoriously provocative painting The Nightmare, Fuseli energetically cultivated a reputation for eccentricity, with vividly stylised images of contemporaries might have thought him even crazier had they been aware that in private he harboured an obsessive preoccupation with the figure of the modern woman, which he pursued almost exclusively in his drawings. Where one might have expected idealised bodies with the grace and proportions of classical statues, here instead we encounter figures whose anatomies have been shaped by stiff bodices, waistbands, puffed sleeves, and pointed shoes, and whose heads are crowned by coiffures of the most bizarre and complicated sort. Often based on the artist's wife Sophia Rawlins, the women who populate Fuseli's graphic work tend to adopt brazenly aggressive attitudes, either fixing their gaze directly on the viewer or ignoring our presence altogether. Usually they appear on their own, in isolation on the page; sometimes they are grouped together to form disturbing narratives, erotic fantasies that may be mysterious, vaguely menacing, or overtly transgressive, but where women always play a dominant role. Among the many intriguing questions raised by these works is the extent to which his wife Sophia was actively involved in fashioning her appearance for her own pleasure, as well as for the benefit of her husband. Exhibition: The Courtauld Gallery, London, UK (13.10.2022 - 08.01.2023) / Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland (02.-03.2023)."-- Publisher's description.

Contents

Drawing in an age of luxury : Fuseli's women in their time -- Making drawings : doing hair, fetishism, artifice and the pleasure of display -- The rise in Henry Fuseli's reputation as a draughtsman -- Tracing, revising and mirroring : Fuseli's pleasure in drawing -- I, the Medusa of the hearth -- II, The other side of Venus -- III, Dangerous liaisons.