Henry Fuseli: Greek Tragedy and Cultural Pluralism

Abstract

The wash drawings and oil paintings of subjects from Greek tragedy by Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), routinely categorized as romantic classicism, might be better explained in terms of the contemporary revival of Greek tragedy, made possible by the philosophical anthropology of Johann Gottfried von Herder and David Garrick's theater of character. From this climate of experimentation with foreign cultures arose a morally detached spectator and a critique of Eurocentrism in the era of Captain Cook and the American Revolution. Fuseli's classicism thus played its part in the formation of the modern liberal version of cultural pluralism.