Not on display
- Artist
- Henry Fuseli 1741–1825
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 991 × 1257 mm
frame: 1248 × 1510 × 108 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Art Fund 1941
- Reference
- N05304
Display caption
Conventionally, history paintings were based on a literary or historical source familiar to educated viewers. The artist’s role was to select from the story a crucially significant moment that would convey a sense of nobility and moral certainty.
The success of this strategy of course depended on the viewer knowing the story, and so knowing what would happen next. Fuseli, however, admitted that he invented the saga of Percival and Belisane shown here. His paintings tended to emphasis spectacle and sensation rather then the noble themes and moral lessons which Reynolds’s view of the ‘great style’ demanded.
Gallery label, September 2004
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Explore
- characters(457)
- tools and machinery(1,303)
-
- chain(56)
- sword(214)
- actions: expressive(2,655)
- magic and occultism(651)
- crime and punishment(441)
-
- imprisonment(25)
- royalty and social rank(1,833)
-
- knight(39)
You might like
-
Henry Fuseli Titania and Bottom
c.1790 -
Henry Fuseli The Shepherd’s Dream, from ‘Paradise Lost’
1793 -
Henry Fuseli Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers
?exhibited 1812 -
Henry Fuseli Self-Portrait and Anatomical Studies. Verso: Two Male Anatomical Studies
1783 -
Henry Fuseli Self-Portrait as a Faun. Verso: Head of a Woman Three-Quarters to Left
date not known -
Robert Smirke Sancho Panza and the Duchess
date not known -
Charles Reuben Ryley Oscar Bringing Back Annir’s Daughter
1785 -
Henry Fuseli The Debutante
1807 -
Robert Smirke Don Quixote at Home, after the Termination of his Second Sally
date not known -
Henry Fuseli Charis Phykomené. Verso: Head of a Woman, Unfinished
1791 -
Attributed to William Hamilton The Invasion of a Harem
date not known -
John Hamilton Mortimer II. The Hero’s Father Blesses his Departure
exhibited 1775 -
Henry Fuseli 2. Caricature of Northcote
date not known