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Exhibition

Füssli

The realm of dreams and the fantastic

Discover this automn the oeuvre of the Swiss-born British painter, Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741–1825). Comprising sixty works from public and private collections, span through the most emblematic of works by Füssli, the artist of the imaginary and the sublime. From Shakespearean themes to representations of dreams, nightmares, and apparitions, and mythological and Biblical illustrations, Füssli forged a new aesthetic that shifted between reality and the fantastic.

The son of a painter and art historian, Henry Füssli was trained as a priest and started his artistic career relatively late, during a first trip to London, where he was influenced by the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds. After a long stay in Italy, during which he was fascinated, inparticular, by the power of Michelangelo’s works, he settled in London at the end of the 1770s. Anatypical and intellectual artist, Füssli drew his inspiration from the literary sources that he interpreted imaginatively. In his paintings he developed a dreamlike and dramatic pictorial language, with its blend of the marvellous and the fantastic, the sublime and the grotesque.

Come explore Füssli’s entire oeuvre, which has not been the subject of a monographic exhibition in Paris since 1975: from works that represent Shakespeare’splays, in particular Macbeth, onto those depicting mythological and biblical tales, the female figures represented in his graphic works and the themes of nightmares, a truly Füselian obsession, dreams, and apparitions.

Füssli developed a fantastic vein that was quite marginal at the time, as it distorted academic rules. In 1782, he presented his first version of Nightmare, an emblematic work drawn from his imagination that truly established his career as a painter. Elected Associate Member of the Royal Academy in1788, and Academician in 1790, Füssli, while working in a serial fashion, embodied the quest for the sublime that was all the rage in England at the time.

Discover the striking works of the artist - works that are all too rare in French collections - by a highly original painter whose oeuvre was paradoxical, inspired by an imagination in which terror and horror were combined, forming the aesthetic origins of Dark Romanticism.

Füssli, the realm of dreams and the fantastic
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Füssli, the realm of dreams and the fantastic

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Exhibition

From 16 September to 23 January 2023

Every day from 10am to 6pm.
Evenings on Mondays until 8:30pm.
Last admission 30 minutes before the museum closes.

Rates

Full rate  16 €
Senior rate (65 years old +) 15 €
Reduced rate (étudiants, porteurs du Pass Education et demandeurs d’emploi) 13 €
Youth rate (7-25 ans) 9,50 €
Family rate (for 2 adults and 2 childs from 7 to 17 years old) 45 € 

 

Füssli, the realm of dreams and the fantastic
Füssli, the realm of dreams and the fantastic
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For visitors with a smartphone, download the visit application on your mobile now and enjoy 2 tours: "Permanent Collection" and "Temporary Exhibition".

  • The "permanent collection tour" includes a guided tour lasting 1hr15, 18 points of interest, some 20 descriptions of works and several thematic distractions guide you as you discover the museum's setting and its finest works. Free tour.
  • The "temporary exhibition tour" offers a guided tour of the exhibition with the commentary on 20 works of art. Paid tour 2,49 €

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Photos

© Culturespaces / Thomas Garnier
© Culturespaces / Thomas Garnier
Johann Heinrich Füssli, Le Cauchemar, après 1782, huile sur toile, 31,5 × 23 cm, The Frances Lehman Loeb, Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, photo : Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar, Poughkeepsie, NY / Art Resource, NY
© Culturespaces / Thomas Garnier
Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741 – 1825) Roméo et Juliette 1809 Huile sur toile 143 x 112 cm Collection particulière, en dépôt au Kunstmuseum de Bâle, Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler
© Culturespaces / Thomas Garnier
© Culturespaces / Thomas Garnier
Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741 – 1825) La sorcière de la nuit rendant visite aux sorcières de Laponie 1796, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image of the MMA
Béatrice, Héro et Ursule  1789  Huile sur toile 222 x 159 cm Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, © Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,© Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dres
Johann Heinrich Füssli, La mort de Didon, 1781, huile sur toile, 244,3 x 183,4 cm, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven, CC0 1.0

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