The Aesthetics of the Gothic

14 mars 2013

The Aesthetics of the Gothic

The Nightmare was painting in 1781 by Henri Fuseli. You can find it in Detroit Institute of Arts (USA).

Why is it a Gothic painting ?

We certainly can say that is a gothic painting. Indeed, thanks to what we have studied we can see in the center, a contrast with the woman lying on the bed and the two dark monster at the third plan. The woman, dressed with a white dress acctract our eyes, thanks to her exposed throat wich symbolizied at the time the vulnerability, the passion and the desire of the woman ( the vampire legend) and her not covered wrist. We can see by her position that she's in a deep sleep. Maybe she took a sleeping liquid , indeed we see an empty flask on the table wich is on the left corner of the paint.

Then, in the middle of the painting, we can see a creature glaring at us : an incubus. He sits on the chest of the woman, indeed in the mythologic legend the incubus is a demon in male form who lies upon sleepers to have sexual intercourse with women generally. It's a grotesque creature and it seems like we have disturbing him doing something, the spectator is immediatly immersed into the action. He's really unhappy and can be scary for the viewer.

In the left part of the painting, we see the head of a horse watching the incubus and the woman with bold and featureless eyes. We can suppose that Fuseli added the horse to create a game of word with the word "nightmare"; "mare" meaning the femal of the horse. The etymology of the word "nightmare", however, does not relate to horses.

The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary belief and folklore about nightmares .

The room is hung with red velvet curtains which drape behind the bed, and red sheet which emerges from the bed. Red connotes the passion but also the blood and the death. It creates a contrast with the woman in white which connotes innoncence and vulnerability. All this contrast make us think of famous gothic codes that we studied in class like the opposites ( here the beauty of the woman and the grotesque creatures), the scary atmosphere (nightmares) and a scene which opposites a vilain ( the creatures) and a victim ( the woman asleep).

Here is a little video which explaining the meaning of this painting to better understand. Enjoy !