Romanticism In Fuseli's Hamlet

Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy and a major influence upon the development of Romanticism, Fuseli early in his career discovered in Shakespeare a central inspiration for his art. One of the Shakespeare plays that most attracted Fuseli was Hamlet. It is no wonder, then, that Fuseli contributed several paintings on a Hamlet subject to Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, about half of which have survived. However, all were reworked by various engravers and survive in that form in A Collection of Prints. Unfortunately, Fuseli’s Hamlet and the Ghost painting appears to have disappeared after it was sold, and we know it only from the stipple engraving by Robert Thew that was published in 1796 by the Boydells.
The effect of the stipple technique

Horatio, like Hamlet, is a student at the University of Wittenberg, where he learned about the principle of rational truth and became fascinated by it. Horatio’s idealism comes face to face for the first time with something it cannot explain. He calls the Ghost a “thing” and an “illusion” because he cannot bring himself even to say the word ghost. Despite the fact that the presence of the Ghost seems irrational to Horatio, he believes it is necessary for Hamlet to know about it. A short time before, Hamlet’s idealism got a shock in the form of his mother’s quick decision to marry his uncle Claudius, new king of Denmark. He thought his mother was idealistically devoted to his father, whom Hamlet loved devotedly. Now Hamlet learns from his close friend that a ghost has appeared and that it looks much like his father. Since Hamlet has had the same philosophy teachers at the University of Wittenberg as Horatio, he does not believe in ghosts either. Horatio even feels a little ridiculous telling him about it, but after all, it looked like Hamlet’s father, the former king, and it seemed to be searching for someone. Despite his strong disbelief, Horatio decides that Hamlet needs to be informed. Being ignorant of the way his father died, Hamlet has no apparent inclinations to take any decisive actions. Claudius took his throne away from him, of course, but Hamlet

Here we begin to see the evil that had been lurking around King Hamlet the First in the intrigues of Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius, which makes Hamlet seek revenge and punish the murder and all those who broke the rules of his ideal world. This struggle for just and truth constitutes the whole plot and sense of the