THE EMBODIMENT OF SUBLIMITY: DISCOURSES BETWEEN VISUAL, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTIONS OF SENTIENCE IN THE DRAWINGS OF HENRY FUSELI, 1770-78 by ALAN EDWARD BOULTON A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Art History, Film and Visual Studies College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham October 2014 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis provides a thematically-based interpretation of Henry Fuseli’s art-making focusing on his drawings of the 1770s - a period that is shown to be his most important phase of artistic development. Throughout the thesis I indicate how the characteristics of these drawings can be attributed to Fuseli’s attempts to establish visual dialogues with particular theoretical perspectives, and I show how he used drawing to analyse and challenge dominant art practice’s functions and attendant discourses. My close visual analyses of Fuseli’s drawings note these images’ relationships to his later artwork by demonstrating the underlying coherence and motivations of his creative methods. Moreover, the thesis shows how Fuseli’s art practice of the 1770s provided conceptual foundations for his later Lectures on Painting. The thesis’s four chapters examine Fuseli’s understanding of artistic invention; his challenging of conventional artistic subject matters, modes of representation and their purposes; his understanding of the sublime and its use as an artistic device; and his comprehension and practice of artistic imitation. In conclusion, the thesis proposes that Fuseli crafted his drawings to encourage their viewers to have profound, disquieting, imaginative experiences, which motivated them to challenge their self-perceptions and that which was conventionally determined as sentient existence. DEDICATION In memory of Mr G.H. Boulton – this is for you Dad ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to the following people for generously giving their time, expertise and support: Dr Richard Clay, University of Birmingham Dr Colin Cruise, University of Aberystwyth The Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Britain Mark Pomeroy, Archivist, Royal Academy of Arts, London Dr Camilla Smith, University of Birmingham Dr Barry Taylor, Staffordshire University Professor Shearer West, Oxford University TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations Introduction 1 Over-view of Fuseli scholars’ opinions of the artist 4 Intention, invention and creation: a conceptual framework 8 Addressing omissions in Fuseli scholarship 24 - Conceptions of Self 27 - Art, its status and functions 37 Thesis structure 46 Chapter 1 Visual Re-invention 53 Artistic Invention: Eighteenth-century academic art practice and aesthetic theory 56 Academic principles of invention and Fuseli’s art practice 65 Fuseli’s conception of artistic invention and its transfer into practice 76 Conclusion 94 Chapter 2 Drawing Analogies 98 Part 1 Drawing and eighteenth-century academic art practice 101 Fuseli’s theoretical responses to normative appreciations of classical and Renaissance art 107 Fuseli’s drawings after the Horse-tamers and of associated subjects 124 The human form: a medium of plastic expression (Fuseli’s drawings from the antique and those of his more academic contemporaries) 139 Part 2 156 Michelangelo’s art: As perceived in academic theory and by Fuseli 158 The human form re-appraised - Fuseli’s drawings after Michelangelo 162 Conclusion 178 Chapter 3 Transfiguring Terror 183 Part 1 The sublime and academic art practice 186 Part 2 Fuseli’s early understandings of the sublime and his appreciation of art 196 Part 3 Fuseli’s processing of ideas on the sublime into imagery 218 Conclusion 239 Chapter 4 Predetermined Mimesis 243 Part 1 Academic understandings of artistic imitation 248 Part 2 Fuseli’s understanding of artistic imitation 254 Bodmer’s dramatic writing, his character types, and Fuseli’s use of imitation when drawing figures 263 Part 3 The Nobility of Self 278 Imitating the condition of great artistic mind and character 279 Mysterious experiences: Drawing, a means for elevating mind and enhancing character 294 Conclusion 325 Conclusion 329 Being an Artist 330 Becoming Sublime 335 Imaginative Vision 348 Bibliography 355 Illustrations 369 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Figure 1) Paolo de Matthaeis: The Choice of Hercules (1712); Oil on canvas, 198 x 256 cm. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. (Figure 2) Laocoön (early 1st century BC); Marble, height 2.4m, Vatican Museums, Rome. (Figure 3) Raphael: Vatican frescoes (1508 - c.1520); Fresco, various sizes (500 x 670 - 770cm.), Apostolic Palace of The Vatican, Rome. (Figure 4) Benjamin West: Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768); Oil on canvas, 163.8 x 240 cm. Yale University Art Gallery. (Figure 4a) Detail of centre of West’s Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus. (Figure 5) Gavin Hamilton: Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus (1760-63); Oil on canvas, 227 x 391 cm. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. (Figure 6) Joshua Reynolds: Mrs Abington as ‘Miss Prue’ (1771); Oil on canvas, 76.8 × 63.7 cm. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection. (Figure 7) Joshua Reynolds: Mrs Lloyd (1776); Oil on canvas, 236 x 146 cm. Private Collection. (Figure 8) Joshua Reynolds: Mrs Hale as ‘Euphrosyne’ (1766); Oil on canvas, 236 x 146 cm. Harewood House, Yorkshire, UK. (Figure 9) Joshua Reynolds: Mrs Hartley as a Nymph with her son as the Infant Bacchus (1773); Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 68.6 cm. Tate, London. (Figure 10) Joshua Reynolds: Lady Bampflyde (1776-7); Oil on canvas, 238 x 148 cm. Tate, London. (Figure 11) Henry Fuseli: The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (1772); Pen and ink wash over pencil on paper, 64.5 x 80 cm. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. (Figure 12) Giovanni da Bologna: Hercules and Nessus (1599); Marble, 300 cm. Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. (Figure 13) Henry Fuseli: The Death of Cardinal Beaufort, small version (1772); Pen and ink wash on paper, 29.5 x 32 cm. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. (Figure 14) Raphael Mengs: Augustus and Cleopatra (1759); Oil on canvas, 305 x 212 cm. The Hoare Collection, Stourhead, Wiltshire. (Figure 15) Raphael: The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple (1511-12); Fresco, width at base 750 cm. Apostolic Palace of The Vatican, Rome. (Figure 16) Joseph Wright: An Academy by Lamplight (1768-9); Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.2 cm. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection. (Figure 17) Henry Fuseli: Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking (c.1775-6); Pen and grey ink, with grey wash over graphite, on paper, 25.2 x 38.5 cm. The British Museum, London, Roman Album. (Figure 18) Henry Fuseli: The Death of Brutus (c.1775); Charcoal, touched with white chalk on paper, 55.3 x 66.9 cm. The British Museum, London. (Figure 19) Borghese Gladiator (c.100 BC); Marble, life-size, Musée du Louvre, Paris. (Figure 20) Gavin Hamilton: Andromache Bewailing the Death of Hector (c.1759); Oil on canvas, 64.2 x 98.5 cm. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. (Figure 21) Henry Fuseli: Teiresias Drinks the Sacrificial Blood (1774-8); Pen and ink wash on paper, 35 x 47.9 cm. The British Museum, London, Roman Album. (Figure 22) Henry Fuseli: Odysseus before Teiresias in Hades (c.1776-77); Pen and ink wash on paper, 35.4 x 47.4 cm. The British Museum, London, Roman Album. (Figure 23) Gavin Hamilton: The Anger of Achilles for the Loss of Briseis (1769); Engraving (D. Cunego), 45.3 x 62 cm. The British Museum, London. (Figure 24) Henry Fuseli: The Witches Show Macbeth Banquo’s Descendants (1773/1779); Pen and ink wash on paper, 36 x 42 cm. Kunsthaus, Zurich. (Figure 25) Horse-tamers of Monte Cavallo, Antique, Marble, over life size, near the Baths of Constantine, Quirinal Hill, Rome. (Figure 26) Pietro Testa: study for The Suicide of Dido (c.1648-50); Pen and brown wash over red chalk with greyish light brown wash on paper, 26.9 x 41.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. (Figure 27) Benjamin West: The Departure of Regulus (1769); Oil on canvas, 229.9 x 304.8 cm. The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. (Figure 28) Henry Fuseli: Garrick and Mrs Pritchard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the Murder of Duncan (1768); Pen and wash, watercolour and white heightening on paper, 32.2 x 39.4 cm. Kunsthaus, Zurich. (Figure 29) Antonio da Correggio: Jupiter and Io (c.1530); Oil on canvas, 163.5 x 70.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. (Figure 30) Annibale Carracci: Allegory of Truth and Time (1584-5); Oil on canvas, 130 x 169.6 cm. The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. (Figure 31) Titian: The Venus of Urbino (1538); Oil on canvas, 119 x 165 cm. Uffizi, Florence. (Figure 32 a-e) Antique statues: a) The Meleager (c.150 AD, after 4th century BC Greek original, Marble, 2.24 m., Museo Pio- Clementino, Rome); b) The Venus (c.130-100 BC, Marble, Height: 2.02 m., Musée du Louvre, Paris); c) The Apollo (c.120-140 AD, copy of bronze original c.350-325 BC, Marble, Height 2.24 m., Vatican Museum, Rome); d) Hercules (3rd century AD, copy of bronze original 4th century BC, Marble, Height, 3.25 m., Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples); e) The Antinous (2nd century AD, copy of 4th century BC original, Marble, Height, 1.8 m.