Romanticism1784
Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking
Henry Fuseli
Curator's Eye
"The intensity of Lady Macbeth's vacant stare and her joined hands trying to erase an invisible bloodstain embody the climax of Shakespearian drama. The harsh, spectral light isolates the protagonist from total darkness to emphasize her mental alienation."
A terrifying dive into the tormented psyche of a regicidal queen, caught between madness and guilt. Fuseli transforms a theatrical scene into a sublime nightmare, marking the birth of Dark Romanticism.
Analysis
This work illustrates Act V, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's tragedy, where Lady Macbeth, consumed by remorse after King Duncan's murder, sinks into sleepwalking. Fuseli does not merely illustrate the text; he captures the moment reason collapses. The queen seems to levitate in her white nightgown, her fixed eyes gazing at a horror that only her inner eyes perceive. Behind her, the doctor and the gentlewoman observe this downfall with dread, serving as witnesses to the divine justice exercised through mental torture.
The myth of Macbeth is treated here through the lens of hubris and retribution. Lady Macbeth, who had invoked the "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" to unsex herself of feminine pity, is finally overtaken by the humanity she tried to stifle. The bloodstain she frantically tries to wash ("Out, damned spot!") becomes a metaphor for the indelibility of crime. Fuseli uses this motif to explore the depths of the unconscious long before the invention of psychoanalysis.
Fuseli's aesthetic is distinguished by a rejection of classical realism in favor of expressive exaggeration. Proportions are elongated, gestures are theatrical, and muscular tension is palpable. The artist seeks to provoke the "Sublime," that feeling of terror mixed with admiration theorized by Edmund Burke. Lady Macbeth is no longer a woman, but a tragic entity, a force of nature devastated by her own ambition.
The work belongs to a period where Fuseli established himself as the painter of dreams and the irrational. Unlike his neoclassical contemporaries who preached clarity and order, Fuseli dives into the shadows. He uses Shakespeare as a vehicle to liberate the European imagination from the shackles of pure reason, paving the way for future explorations of the fantastic and symbolism.
The first secret lies in the model: Fuseli painted this work inspired directly by the performance of the famous actress Sarah Siddons, who revolutionized the role in London with her intense acting and her way of never blinking. The artist was fascinated by her ability to embody pure terror, and he sought to transpose this almost unbearable physical presence onto the canvas, blurring the line between pictorial and dramatic art.
A technical secret concerns Fuseli's pigment preparation. Known for his bold but sometimes unstable use of materials, he often used experimental mixtures to achieve his spectral whites and deep blacks. Some critics of the time claimed he ate raw meat in the evening to provoke the nightmares that inspired his paintings. While likely an urban legend, it testifies to the aura of mystery and unease surrounding his artistic practice.
The work contains a deliberate anatomical anomaly. If one observes Lady Macbeth's posture closely, her torsion and the elongation of her neck are physically impossible. This "Mannerism" of Fuseli is a deliberate choice to accentuate the effect of sleepwalking and disconnection from the physical body. The queen does not walk; she is pushed by an invisible force, and this bodily distortion reinforces the supernatural aspect of the scene.
Finally, a historical secret links this canvas to the Louvre: it was long considered a minor work before being rediscovered by the Surrealists in the 20th century. André Breton saw in Fuseli a direct precursor to automatic writing and the exploration of dreams. This painting has thus become a bridge between the 18th century and modernity, revealing that human obsessions with shadow and guilt are universal and timeless.
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What aesthetic and contextual peculiarity defines the break Fuseli makes here with Neoclassical tradition in his representation of Shakespearian drama?
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