Creator of Nightmares

Christopher Baker is Editor of the Burlington Magazine and an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh. He was previously a Director at the National Galleries of Scotland and has published and lectured widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and European art.

• Introduction1 Origins in Zurich2 A European Man of Letters 3 The Impact of Rome4 The Nightmare5 The Vagaries of Fame6 Creative Friendships 7 Legacies ReferencesSelect Bibliography Acknowledgements Photo AcknowledgementsIndex

Creator of Nightmares is lean and engaging, in many ways an ideal introduction to the painter. - Maxwell Carter, Wall Street JournalThe Nightmare (1781) is one of the most recognisable paintings in art history, but, Baker notes, its creator is more of a mystery. Here, he makes a case for Fuseli being ‘one of the most provocative, inventive and fascinating artists’ of the late 18th century. - ApolloThere is much to commend in this clear and scupulously researched biography: the author's deep familiarity with the whole corpus of Fuseli's works, his informed sense of the milieus in which Fuseli moved in London and in Rome, and his treatment of Fuseli's origins and early ambitions. This biography sends the reader back refreshed to the fascinating contrasts in the arts of the turn of the 19th century, host to both the daylight restraint of neoclassicism and the wild night-time riot of devils, witches, dreams and fire. - Peter Davidson, Literary ReviewA highly readable representation, richly illustrated and wonderfully well balanced. - Werner Busch, Professor of Art History, Freie Universität Berlin