Friday, November 10, 2017

Henry Fuseli Illustrates Shakespeare

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Hamlet, act II, scene 1
Ophelia and Hamlet

ca. 1775-76
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Hamlet, act V, scene 1
Hamlet at Ophelia's grave
1774
drawing
British Museum

Hamlet:
I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not (with all their quantity of love)
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

Claudius:
O, he is mad, Laertes.

Gertrude: 
For love of God, forbear him!

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
King Lear, act V, scene 3
Lear and the dead Cordelia

1774-78
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Julius Caesar, act V, scene 5
Death of Brutus

ca. 1780-85
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Macbeth, act II, scene 2
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

1774
drawing
British Museum

Macbeth:
I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.

Lady Macbeth:
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Macbeth, act IV, scene 1

Macbeth, the Three Witches, and the Armed Head
1774
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Macbeth, act IV, scene 1
Macbeth,  the Three Witches, and the Armed Head
1774
drawing
British Museum

Henry FuseliRoman Album
Macbeth, act V, scene 1
Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking

1772
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Macbeth, act V, scene 1
Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking
1772
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Henry VI, part 2, act III, scene 2
Warwick with Gloucester's corpse
1777
drawing
British Museum

Earl of Warwick:
Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.

Henry VI:
That is to see how deep my grave is made;
For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
for seeing him I see my life in death.

Earl of Warwick:
As surely as my soul intends to live
With that dread King that took our state upon him
To free us from his father's wrathful curse,
I do believe that violent hands were laid
Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.

Earl of Suffolk:
A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
Henry VI, part 2, act III, scene 3
Death of Cardinal Beaufort
1772
drawing
British Museum

Earl of Warwick:
See, how the pangs of death do make him grin!

Earl of Salisbury:
Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably.

Henry VI: 
Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!
Lord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,
Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.
He dies, and makes no sign. O God, forgive him!

Earl of Warwick:
So bad a death argues a monstrous life.

Henry VI:
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.

Henry Fuseli
Roman Album
King John, act IV, scene 1
Arthur, Duke of Brittany and Hubert de Burgh
1775
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
The Tempest, act I, scene 2
Prospero, Miranda, and Ferdinand
ca. 1767-69
drawing
British Museum

Henry Fuseli
Timon of Athens, act IV, scene 3
Timon seated in a cave approached by Alcibiades, Phrynia, and Timandra
1783
drawing
British Museum

Alcibiades:
What art thou there? speak.

Timon:
A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart,
For showing me again the eyes of man!

Alcibiades: 
What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee,
That art thyself a man?

Timon: 
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.

Alcibiades: 
I know thee well;
But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.

Timon:
I know thee too; and more than that I know thee,
I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;
Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,
For all her cherubim look.

Phrynia: 
Thy lips rot off!