Art Analysis: The Nightmare By John Henry Fuseli

The Nightmare is one of many paintings done by Swiss artist John Henry Fuseli. This painting was completed in 1781, but Fuseli painted three other variations of his original in the following years. Despite there being a total of four different variations of the painting, each variation uses colors, emotions, and a deeper message to display the same supernatural nightmare.

Through the use of color, The Nightmare is able to depict a horrifying scene without showing an excess of violence. The Nightmare illustrates a sleeping woman who is being visited by dark creatures. While most of the painting is dark and full of shadows, the woman herself is dressed in a bright white dress which immediately draws the viewer’s eye. The color white symbolizes purity, which can relate to the woman’s virginity. She is sprawled across a bed in a way that replicates death. Her head and shoulders hang off the bed and her arms graze the floor. In this way she is unable to fight against the creature who is sitting upon her chest. The red sheet she is lying on top of is reminiscent of blood, lending to the theory that the woman may be dead instead of sleeping. The white dress and red sheet are the most vivid colors in this painting, with the rest of the painting being made up of dark colors. Darkness is generally accepted as also meaning evil. The creature sitting atop the woman’s chest is shrouded in shadows and clearly has ill intentions towards the woman. The creature itself is an incubus. An