Henry Fuseli Illustrates Dante, Milton, and the Bible

Henry Fuseli
Paolo and Francesca (Inferno)
1777
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Dante swooning before soaring souls of Paolo and Francesca (Inferno)
ca. 1818
etching, aquatint
British Museum

"But, if to recognise the earliest root
     Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
     I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.

One day we reading were for our delight
     Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
     Alone we were and without any fear.   

Full many a time our eyes together drew
     That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
     But one point only was it that o'ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
     Being by such a noble lover kissed,
     This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating,
     Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
     That day no farther did we read therein."

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
     The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
     I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

– from Canto V of Dante's Inferno, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Dante and Virgil on the ice (Inferno)
1774-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Dante and Virgil with Guido Cavalcante (Inferno)
1774-80
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Scene from Dante's Inferno
1774
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Buoconte da Montefeltro's soul carried to heaven, his body cast into Hell by a devil (Purgatorio)
1774-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Figure studies for Dante's Purgatorio
1770-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
The Night Hag (Paradise Lost)
ca. 1799
drawing, watercolor
British Museum

                 
                   Before the Gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd Woman to the waste, and fair,
But ended in many a scaly fould
Voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd thir noyse, into her woomb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within unseen. Farr less abhorrd than these
Vex'd Scylla bathing in the Sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the Night-Hag, when call'd
In secret, riding through the Air she comes
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland Witches, while the labouring Moon
Eclipses at thir charms.

– from book 2 of Milton's Paradise Lost

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Satan escaping from Ithuriel's spear (Paradise Lost)
1776
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Satan, Sin and Death (Paradise Lost)
1776-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Isaiah's Vision (Old Testament)
Francis Willoughby's Practical Family Bible
1772
etching
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Jonah's Indignation (Old Testament) 
Francis Willoughby's Practical Family Bible
1772
etching
British Museum

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.  And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?  Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.  Therefore, now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

– from chapter 4 of the Book of Jonah, the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611)

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Joseph interpreting Pharoah's dream (Old Testament)
1774
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Moses praying on Sinai (Old Testament)
1776-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Conversion of Paul (New Testament)
1770
drawing
British Museum

The Antique, The Living Model & The Study of Anatomy - VII

John Hamilton Mortimer
Self-Portrait with Joseph Wilton and a Student
ca. 1765
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"The painting, formerly dated c. 1778-79, has been redated to c. 1765 by John Sunderland who has suggested that it recalls earlier times when Mortimer and the sculptor Joseph Wilton were associated with the Academy attached to the Duke of Richmond's Cast Gallery of 1758-62.  This gallery complemented the teaching offered by William Shipley's Drawing School, 1753-68, and the second St Martin's Lane Academy, 1753-68.  In 1758 Wilton was made Director of the Duke of Richmond's Academy, and Giovanni Battista Cipriani was in charge of instruction in painting.  John Hamilton Mortimer was among the students.  The three figures in Mortimer's paintings are Wilton (supervising), Mortimer (drawing after the Antique), and a young student (holding an antique head)."

John Hamilton Mortimer
Study of a Cast of the Bacchus of Sansovino
ca. 1760
drawing
Tate Britain

John Hamilton Mortimer
Reclining Model
ca. 1773
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

John Hamilton Mortimer
Reclining Model
ca. 1757-59
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

"John Hamilton Mortimer was one of the most precocious draughtsmen of his generation.  While a pupil of Robert Edge Pine he studied at St Martin's Lane Academy and at the Duke of Richmond's Sculpture Gallery, winning prizes both for life drawing and for a drawing from a cast of Michelangelo's Bacchus.  The medium used by Mortimer in [the drawing directly above], black chalk on grey paper, and the technique, with firm cross-hatching, is very close to that which the artist employed in drawings from the Antique.  Nonetheless, although the drawing exhibits Mortimer's control of line and his confident manipulation of tone, it also reveals the difficulties he experienced in coping with the unexpected irregularities of the human form as opposed to the familiar contours of the classical cast – especially in the handling of the area around the upper torso and neck."  

John Constable
Figure from Michelangelo's Last Judgment
ca. 1830
oil on canvas
National Trust, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge

John Constable
Model posed after Michelangelo's Jonah
from the Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1800-1801
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

"This work demonstrates the manner in which living models were posed at the Royal Academy to resemble figures taken from the Old Masters, as well as from antique statuary.  Here the male model takes up an attitude based on the prophet Jonah from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, a practice which Constable, as a Visitor in the Life Schools in the 1830s, favoured when he posed two male figures based on Michelangelo's Last Judgment, as well as a setting based on Titian's St Peter Martyr.  . . .  On the basis of the paucity of drawings by him from the antique, it has been argued that Constable spent very little time drawing from the Antique.  C.R. Leslie noted: 'I have seen no studies made by Constable at the Academy from the antique, but many chalk drawings and oil paintings from the living model, all of which have great breadth of light and shade, though they are sometimes defective in outline.'  Graham Reynolds pointed out that this drawing, which shows a lack of confidence in the handling, conforms with Leslie's description." 

Richard Cosway
Emma Hamilton in Classical Attitude
ca. 1800
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, London

"At the time of Cosway's drawing, Emma Hart (1765?-1815) was already famous for the 'Attitudes' she performed after classical statuary during her sojourn in Italy as the mistress of Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador in Naples.  The first record of Emma's 'Attitudes' was in 1787 when Goethe, who was at the time a guest at Sir William Hamilton's residence, noted: 'He has had a Greek costume made for her which becomes her extremely. Dressed in this, she lets down her hair and, with a few shawls, gives so much variety to her poses, gestures, expressions, etc., that the spectator can hardly believe his eyes . . . The old knight (Hamilton) idolises her and is quite enthusiastic about everything she does. In her he has found all the antiquities, all the profiles of Sicilian coins, even the Apollo Belvedere.'  In 1794 Frederick Rehberg produced a series of line engravings of Emma's 'Attitudes' entitled Drawings Faithfully Copied from Nature at Naples.  In 1800 she returned to England, around which time Cosway produced this drawing.  By this time she was, according to one contemporary, 'colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. Her bones are large, and she is exceedingly embonpoint. She resembles the bust of Ariadne . . ."  

Benjamin Robert Haydon
Seated Model posed as Hercules
1806
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

George Romney
Model posed as Wounded Achilles
ca. 1775
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

Robert Ker Porter
Model posed at the Royal Academy
ca. 1794-95
drawing
British Museum

George Michael Moser
Seated Model
ca. 1745-50
drawing
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Although George Michael Moser was active in the Life Class throughout his career, few of his own life drawings survive.  As Moser is not known to have worked either in Paris or Rome, it is probable that this drawing was made in London in the St Martin's Lane Academy, possibly in the the 1740s.  . . .  Moser was known for his abilities as a draughtsman; George Vertue, writing in 1745 about the St Martin's Lane Academy, noted that 'amongst the best Mr. Moser the Chaser has distinguisht him self by his skill in drawing in ye Academy from the life this Winter.'  Moser's early history is obscure.  He is said to have studied in Geneva before coming to England as a youth to work as a gold- and silver-chaser.  Moser also worked as an enameller, medallist, and sculptor.  . . .  [He was] instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts, and became its first Keeper in 1769.  In that post, it was his responsibility to oversee the running of the 'Academy of the Living Model' and the 'Plaister Academy,' including the provision of models, the setting out of casts, and the admission of new students to the Schools." 

George Michael Moser after Guido Reni
Hercules and the Hydra
before 1783
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Thomas Rowlandson
Venus, Anchises and Cupid
before 1827
drawing, with watercolor
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Rowlandson
Modern Pygmalion with Galatea
ca. 1790-1810
etching
British Museum

Thomas Rowlandson
The Sculptor
ca. 1800
hand-colored etching
British Museum

"Although Rowlandson's print of The Sculptor was not produced until c. 1800, the clay modello on which Nollekens is shown at work, Venus chiding Cupid, was apparently exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778.  Even though Rowlandson's print is essentially a satirical flight of fancy, the image anticipates the recollections of Nollekens's pupil, J.T. Smith, concerning the sculptor's primary interest in the studio, rather than the academy, model.  According to Smith, 'his naked figures were of the most simple class, being either a young Bacchus, a Diana, or a Venus, with limbs sleek, plump, and round; but I never knew him like Banks to attempt the grandeur of a Jupiter, or even the strength of a gladiator." 

– quoted passages from The Artist's Model: its Role in British Art from Lely to Etty by Ilaria Bignamini and Martin Postle (exhibition catalogue, Nottingham University Art Gallery, 1991)

Terracotta Sculpture (Ancient and Modern)

Anonymous Greek sculptor
Nike
ca. 500-475 BC
terracotta statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Three-dimensional representations of Nike, the winged goddess who brought victory in both battle and athletic contests, usually attempted to evoke flight or the moment of alighting.  This flying figure once had wings attached to the slots in the back."

Anonymous Greek sculptor working in South Italy
Relief of Reclining Youth (Banqueter)
5th century BC
terracotta
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous Greek sculptor
Lekythos in form of flying Eros
ca. 400-350 BC
terracotta
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Although vases in figural form were known in Greek art since early Archaic times, during the fourth century BC a particularly elaborate combination of vase and terracotta developed.  . . .  The figure holds an incense burner."

Anonymous Greek sculptor
Draped Woman
ca. 315-285 BC (Hellenistic)
terracotta statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giovanni della Robbia
Classical Female Head
ca. 1520-25
glazed terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Michelangelo's Hand
ca. 1580
terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Michelangelo's Hand
ca. 1580
terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum

"This terracotta model of a hand has been long known as Michelangelo's Hand because it was formerly ascribed to him.  A similar model of a hand was recorded in a room near the Cappella dei Principi in San Lorenzo, Florence, where Michelangelo carved his famous marble tomb figures for the Medici, but that object had disappeared by 1813.  It is possible that this is the same model."

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Reduced copy of Michelangelo's Dawn
16th century
terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum

Giuseppe Sanmartino
St Vincent Ferrer
1750
terracotta statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), the Spanish Dominican, was frequently known as "the Angel of Judgement," reflecting his powerful preaching of repentance and penance that converted tens of thousands of non-believers within and outside Spain.  Vincent's fervor transcended so many language barriers that he was believed to posses the gift of tongues, symbolized by the flame emerging from his tonsured pate."

Thomas Banks
Achilles arming
ca. 1777
terracotta model
Victoria & Albert Museum

"Thomas Banks (1735-1805) was apprenticed to a London mason, but also spent time working alongside the sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781).  He enrolled in life classes held at the St Martin's Lane Academy, and later at the Royal Academy Schools.  In 1772 he became the first sculptor to win the Royal Academy's three-year travelling stipend and went with his wife to Rome, where he eventually spent seven years.  He specialised in ideal works, most of which were executed in Rome for British patrons, although he continued to produce similar works after his return to London.  He was made a Royal Academician in 1786.  Banks was one of the most original British Neo-classical sculptors.  . . .  Achilles, the doomed hero of Homer's Greek epic The Iliad, seems to have been a particular favourite of the artist's.  When it was acquired by the Victoria & Albert in 1955, this terracotta had been broken into many pieces.  It was conserved shortly after its acquisition."   

Anonymous Italian sculptor working in Naples
Cherub with outstretched arms
ca. 1750-1850
polychromed terracotta
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Jonah
ca. 1825-50
terracotta statuette
Victoria & Albert Museum

"Purchased in 1854 in Florence from the Gherardini Collection, an important collection of sketch-models by Michelangelo, Giambologna and their followers.  This piece was then considered to be a sketch-model by Raphael for the figure of Jonah carved by Lorenzetti for the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.  It was later connected with the figure of Narcissus by Benvenuto Cellini.  However, the results of thermo-luminescence analysis to determine the age of the piece suggest that it probably dates from about 1825-50.  Such technical data is not entirely reliable, but the model does not relate directly to either of the suggested sculptures."

Anonymous French sculptor
Hercules
ca. 1850
terracotta sketch-model
Victoria & Albert Museum

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Impression of Amélie de Montfort
ca. 1867-69
terracotta
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Rapidly sketched, the model delivers the basics of the master's intense attachment to his fiancée, a young aristocrat, first glimpsed at a ball.  The marriage took place in 1869 but soon soured owing to Carpeaux's morbid, irrational suspicions of infidelity on his wife's part." 

– texts based on curator's notes at the respective museums

Drawings from the first half of the 16th century

Hieronymus Bosch
The Owl's Nest
ca. 1505-15
drawing
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Andrea del Sarto
Standing youth with book
1514-15
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Domenico Campagnola
Calling of the first Apostles
ca. 1520-30
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

from FIELD GUIDE TO THE NOVEL

The first book Tom remembers having read, when he was seven, was a reprint [school edition] of Jules Verne's Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and since 1977 he has amassed a collection of as many different editions of the book as he can find in used book stores, Salvation Armys, thrift stores, and the like: Pocket Books, Magnum Easy Eyes, Fawcett Premiers, Signet Classics, Washington Square Paperbacks, Mentors, Amazing Stories, Oxford World Classics, Everyman Editions, Serpent Books, Scholastics, a host of generic elementary school editions sold through school book clubs, Norton Criticals, Dover Thrifts, Fantastic Stories, Penguins, Livres de Poches, Evergreens, Puffins, Pelicans, and Bantams.  Every time he finds a new cover, he promptly goes home and speed reads the book and he has now read Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea 137 times, carelessly, and in six different languages, including Spanish, Russian, Korean, French, Chinese, and Greek.  He even tried learning Arabic once to half-get through a version he found in a pensione in Florence.

One evening after drinking, Tom confessed to me that he had never really bothered to think about the book at all in all his years of reading and that he had not really ever experienced anything while reading the book except the book's numerous covers: one-eyed octopi, riveted nautiluses connected to leathery breathing tubes, a lead balloon that looks like a manhole-cover, photo-synthetic seaweed, farm-like fields of layered oceans and raisin-shaped islands, barnacled or tentacle-entwined periscopes, and even what looks like a large manatee on a book from Brazil.  For Tom, the 1930s with its images of red-eyed sea monsters becomes the 1950s with its Soviet-style submarines becomes the 1960s with its long-haired sea creatures becomes the 1990s with its sonar-guided Trident missiles.  The book is impervious to history and to human reading habits . . .

– Tan Lin (b. 1957), as printed in The noulipian Analects, edited by Christine Wertheim and Matias Viegener (Los Angeles: Les Figues Press, 2007)

Parmigianino
Head of a Woman
ca. 1530-35
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Pordenone
Conversion of St Paul
1530
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Perino del Vaga
Studies from an antique sarcophagus and other objects
ca. 1540
drawing
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

Giorgio Vasari
Three River Gods
1541
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Francesco Salviati after Michelangelo
Bust of warrior with fantastic helmet
ca. 1545
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Maarten van Heemskerck
Christ crowned with thorns
ca. 1548
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Francesco Primaticcio
Dance of the Hours surrounding three putti with cornucopiae
1548
drawing
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

after Giulio Campi
Allegorical figure of Prudence with serpent
ca. 1550
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Battista Franco
Drapery study for Angel of Annunciation
ca. 1553
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Prospero Fontana
Muliebris inconstantia (sketch for allegorical book illustration)
before 1555
drawing
British Museum

Taddeo Zuccaro
Jonah and the whale, seen from a landscape with trees
ca. 1555-60
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide