Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, born in Zürich, Switzerland. As a painter, Fuseli favoured the supernatural and leaning everything on an ideal scale, believing a certain amount of hyperbole necessary in the higher branches of historical painting. The figures in his paintings are full of life and earnestness. Like Rubens he excelled in the art of setting his figures in motion. Though the lofty and terrible was his proper sphere, Fuseli had a fine perception of the ridiculous. Fuseli painted more than 200 pictures, but exhibited only a small number of them. His sketches or designs numbered about 800; they have admirable qualities of invention and design, and are frequently superior to his paintings. Fuseli produced no landscapes and painted only two portraits. Among his pupils were John Constable, Benjamin Haydon, William Etty, Edwin Landseerand and for a time many English artists copied his mannerisms.
