January 24, 2007
Gothic Nightmares
Tate Britain Past Exhibitions:
Fuseli Blake and the Romantic Imagination 15 February - 1 May 2006
Rm. 3 Superheroes
"The works in this selection show how the dynamic style developed by Fuseli and his contemporaries helped define a new image of the hero. Their paintings undermined the more restrained ideals of the past, and were orientated to sensationalist and Gothic tastes. This room is dominated by the large oil paintings on romantic and heroic themes with which Fuseli made his name at the Royal Academy exhibitions in the 1780s."
>for example
This is a scene from a Gothic narrative of Fuseli’s invention. The virile hero, waking from his enchanted sleep, raises his sword to attack a wizard, clasping a chained maiden by his side. The ghostly heads to the left are presumably lost or trapped souls; the manacled woman’s hand hidden to the right is that of another victim of Urma.
Henry Fuseli
Percival Delivering Belisane from the Enchantment of Urma exhibited 1783
Oil on canvas, 991 x 1257 mm
Presented by the National Art Collections Fund 1941
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/gothicnightmares/rooms/room3.htm
~"Gothic nightmares" and superheroes?
Why haven't these painting styles been copied or adapted by today's film animators?
Wouldn't you like to see figures from classic paintings move and talk?