Henry Fuseli's pragmatic use of aesthetics: His epic illustrations of Macbeth

Abstract

During a career of more than half a century, mostly spent in England, the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli illustrated a great number of literary texts, and among them many plays by Shakespeare1 In this respect, he participated in the Shakespearian cult which flourished during the second half of the eighteenth century and which, in England, elevated the Renaissance poet to the status of a mythical figure. Shakespeare was often compared to Homer.2 This popular worship of Shakespeare was inspired in several ways: the publication and the commercialization of his plays, for example, played an important role in the popularization and democratization of the poet. The theatre, too, contributed to his familiarization. In the visual arts, it is John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery which made the poet accessible to the public at large. By exhibiting pictures by the most eminent artists of the day — among them Fuseli — it offered a wide range of illustrations of the plays. Opening on 4 May, 1789, Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery immediately became one of the most fashionable headquarters of London literary and artistic life. It was the stage where people could see and be seen. For the artists, too, it was a place of opportunity. No longer assured of financial security by the patronage system and confronted with a competition which had not existed before, they had — in one way or another — to seduce the eye and the taste of the spectators. The latter were now not just passive admirers. They were also potential buyers.4