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91-494: The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli . It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her and a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest. The painting's erotic and haunting evocation of obsession became a breakthrough success for Fusel. The canvas portrays the woman's nightmare in which she is visited by an incubus and a horse's head. Contemporary critics were taken aback by

182-407: A " size " to isolate the canvas from the acidic qualities of the paint. Traditionally, the canvas was coated with a layer of animal glue (modern painters will use rabbit skin glue) as the size and primed with lead white paint, sometimes with added chalk. Panels were prepared with a gesso , a mixture of glue and chalk. Modern acrylic " gesso " is made of titanium dioxide with an acrylic binder. It

273-472: A canvas and can also be used for application. Oil paint remains wet longer than many other types of artists' materials, enabling the artist to change the color, texture, or form of the figure. At times, the painter might even remove an entire layer of paint and begin anew. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, but after a while the hardened layer must be scraped off. Oil paint dries by oxidation , not evaporation , and

364-500: A complicated and rather expensive process with the panel constructed from several pieces of wood, although such support tends to warp. Panels continued to be used well into the 17th century, including by Rubens , who painted several large works on wood. The artists of the Italian regions moved towards canvas in the early 16th century, led partly by a wish to paint larger images, which would have been too heavy as panels. Canvas for sails

455-647: A crucial work that marked the start of the Gutenberg Revolution and the age of the printed book in the Western world . Johann Reuchlin was the most important aspect of world culture teaching within Germany at this time. He was a scholar of both Greek and Hebrew. Graduating, then going on to teach at Basel, he was considered extremely intelligent. Yet after leaving Basel, he had to start copying manuscripts and apprenticing within areas of law. However, he

546-446: A difference. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush used for detail work. "Flat" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. "Bright" is a flat brush with shorter brush hairs, used for "scrubbing in". "Filbert" is a flat brush with rounded corners. "Egbert" is a very long, and rare, filbert brush. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat metal blade. A palette knife may also be used to remove paint from

637-685: A distinctively German style, his work shows strong Italian influence, and is often taken to represent the start of the German Renaissance in visual art, which for the next forty years replaced the Netherlands and France as the area producing the greatest innovation in Northern European art. Dürer supported Martin Luther but continued to create Madonnas and other Catholic imagery, and paint portraits of leaders on both sides of

728-429: A spirit sent to torment or suffocate sleepers. The early meaning of nightmare included the sleeper's experience of weight on the chest combined with sleep paralysis , dyspnea , or a feeling of dread. Sleep and dreams were common subjects for Fuseli, although The Nightmare is unique among his paintings for its lack of reference to literary or religious themes (Fuseli was an ordained minister). His first known painting

819-507: A studio, because while outside, an artist did not have the time to let each layer of paint dry before adding a new layer. Several contemporary artists use a combination of both techniques to add bold color (wet-on-wet) and obtain the depth of layers through glazing. When the image is finished and has dried for up to a year, an artist often seals the work with a layer of varnish that is typically made from dammar gum crystals dissolved in turpentine. Such varnishes can be removed without disturbing

910-590: A tactile, almost sculptural quality, was groundbreaking at the time and had a lasting impact on 20th-century movements such as Expressionism and Fauvism. His iconic works like Starry Night (1889) and Sunflowers (1888) showcase his emotional intensity, using exaggerated colors and dramatic compositions to convey psychological depth. Early 20th-century Expressionists, such as Edvard Munch and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , were inspired by Van Gogh’s ability to express inner turmoil and existential angst through distorted forms and vibrant hues. German Renaissance One of

1001-644: A wide range of pigments and ingredients and even include the use of a final varnish layer. The application technique and refined level of the paint media used in the murals and their survival into the present day suggest that oil paints had been used in Asia for some time before the 7th century. The technique used, of binding pigments in oil, was unknown in Europe for another 900 years or so. In Northern Europe, practitioners of Early Netherlandish painting developed oil painting techniques which other Europeans adopted from around

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1092-679: Is an unfinished portrait of a girl on the back of the painting's canvas, which may portray Landholdt. Anthropologist Charles Stewart characterises the sleeping woman as "voluptuous," and one scholar of the Gothic describes her as lying in a "sexually receptive position." In Woman as Sex Object (1972), Marcia Allentuck argued that the intent is to show female orgasm. This is supported by Fuseli's sexually overt and even pornographic private drawings (e.g. Symplegma of Man with Two Women , 1770–78), while The Nightmare has been considered representative of sublimated sexual instincts. Other interpretations view

1183-613: Is applied. The oldest known oil paintings were created by Buddhist artists in Afghanistan and date back to the 7th century AD. Oil paint was used by Europeans for painting statues and woodwork from at least the 12th century, but its common use for painted images began with Early Netherlandish painting in Northern Europe, and by the height of the Renaissance , oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced

1274-466: Is divided into separate "runs" for figures ( figure ), landscapes ( paysage ), and marines ( marine ) that more or less preserve the diagonal. Thus a 0 figure corresponds in height with a paysage 1 and a marine 2 . Although surfaces like linoleum , wooden panel , paper , slate , pressed wood , Masonite , and cardboard have been used, the most popular surface since the 16th century has been canvas , although many artists used panel through

1365-461: Is frequently used on canvas, whereas real gesso is not suitable for canvas. The artist might apply several layers of gesso, sanding each smooth after it has dried. Acrylic gesso is very difficult to sand. One manufacturer makes a "sandable" acrylic gesso, but it is intended for panels only and not canvas. It is possible to make the gesso a particular color, but most store-bought gesso is white. The gesso layer, depending on its thickness, will tend to draw

1456-433: Is hung with red velvet curtains which drape behind the bed. Emerging from a parting in the curtain is the head of a horse with bold, pupil-less eyes. For contemporary viewers, the relationship of the incubus and the horse ( mare ) evoked the notion of nightmares . The work was likely inspired by the waking dreams experienced by Fuseli and his contemporaries, who found that these experiences related to folkloric beliefs like

1547-585: Is looking at the woman rather than out of the picture, and it has pointed and catlike ears. The most significant difference in the remaining two versions is an erotic statuette of a couple on the table. The Nightmare was widely copied, with parodies commonly used for political caricature , including those by George Cruikshank , Thomas Rowlandson and others. In these satirical scenes, the incubus afflicts subjects such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XVIII , British politician Charles James Fox , and Prime Minister William Pitt . In another example admiral Lord Nelson

1638-689: Is made by mixing pigments of colors with an oil medium. Since the 19th century the different main colors are purchased in paint tubes pre-prepared before painting begins, further shades of color are usually obtained by mixing small quantities as the painting process is underway. An artist's palette , traditionally a thin wood board held in the hand, is used for holding and mixing paints. Pigments may be any number of natural or synthetic substances with color, such as sulfides for yellow or cobalt salts for blue. Traditional pigments were based on minerals or plants, but many have proven unstable over long periods. Modern pigments often use synthetic chemicals. The pigment

1729-417: Is made from linen , but less expensive cotton fabric has been used. The artist first prepares a wooden frame called a "stretcher" or "strainer". The difference between the two names is that stretchers are slightly adjustable, while strainers are rigid and lack adjustable corner notches. The canvas is then pulled across the wooden frame and tacked or stapled tightly to the back edge. Then the artist applies

1820-437: Is mine, and I am hers. And have her I will.…" Fuseli's marriage proposal met with disapproval from Landholdt's father and seems to have been unrequited—she married a family friend soon after. The Nightmare , then, can be seen as a personal portrayal of the erotic aspects of love lost. Art historian H. W. Janson suggests that the sleeping woman represents Landholdt and that the demon is Fuseli himself. Bolstering this claim

1911-719: Is mixed with oil, usually linseed, but other oils may be used. The various oils dry differently, which creates assorted effects. A brush is most commonly employed by the artist to apply the paint, often over a sketched outline of their subject (which could be in another medium). Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog bristles might be used for bolder strokes and impasto textures. Fitch hair and mongoose hair brushes are fine and smooth, and thus answer well for portraits and detail work. Even more expensive are red sable brushes ( weasel hair). The finest quality brushes are called " kolinsky sable "; these brush fibers are taken from

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2002-572: Is most known for his work within Hebrew studies. Unlike some other "thinkers" of this time, Reuchlin submerged himself into this, even creating a guide to preaching within the Hebrew faith. The book, titled De Arte Predicandi (1503), is possibly one of his best-known works from this period. Albrecht Dürer was at the time, and remains, the most famous artist of the German Renaissance. He was famous across Europe, and greatly admired in Italy, where his work

2093-614: Is sometimes identified as Roger of Helmarshausen ) gives instructions for oil-based painting in his treatise, De diversis artibus ('on various arts'), written about 1125. At this period, it was probably used for painting sculptures, carvings, and wood fittings, perhaps especially for outdoor use. Surfaces exposed to the weather or of items like shields—both those used in tournaments and those hung as decorations—were more durable when painted in oil-based media than when painted in traditional tempera paints. However, early Netherlandish paintings with artists like Van Eyck and Robert Campin in

2184-505: Is the demon and his mistress Emma, Lady Hamilton is the sleeper. While some observers have viewed the parodies as mocking Fuseli, it is more likely that The Nightmare was simply a vehicle for ridicule of the caricatured subject. The Danish painter, Nicolai Abildgaard , whom Fuseli had met in Rome, produced an 1800 version of The Nightmare which develops on the eroticism of Fuseli's work. Abildgaard's painting shows two naked women asleep in

2275-610: Is usually dry to the touch within two weeks (some colors dry within days). The earliest known surviving oil paintings are Buddhist murals created c.  650 AD in Bamiyan , Afghanistan. Bamiyan is a historic settlement along the Silk Road and is famous for the Bamiyan Buddhas, a series of giant statues, behind which rooms and tunnels are carved from the rock. The murals are located in these rooms. The artworks display

2366-534: Is widely considered the most influential person within the German Renaissance. As a free thinker, humanist, and inventor, Gutenberg also grew up within the Renaissance, but influenced it greatly as well. His best-known invention is the printing press in 1440. Gutenberg's press allowed the humanists, reformists, and others to circulate their ideas. He is also known as the creator of the Gutenberg Bible ,

2457-528: The Dance of Death relate to the works of the Little Masters , a group of printmakers who specialized in very small and highly detailed engravings for bourgeois collectors, including many erotic subjects. The outstanding achievements of the first half of the 16th century were followed by several decades with a remarkable absence of noteworthy German art, other than accomplished portraits that never rival

2548-777: The Landshut Residence , Heidelberg Castle , the Augsburg Town Hall as well as the Antiquarium of the Munich Residenz in Munich, the largest Renaissance hall north of the Alps. The Renaissance was largely driven by the renewed interest in classical learning, and was also the result of rapid economic development. At the beginning of the 16th century, Germany (referring to the lands contained within

2639-442: The binder . It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas , wood panel or copper for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. The advantages of oil for painting images include "greater flexibility, richer and denser color, the use of layers, and a wider range from light to dark". But the process is slower, especially when one layer of paint needs to be allowed to dry before another

2730-464: The flax seed, a common fiber crop . Linen , a "support" for oil painting (see relevant section), also comes from the flax plant. Safflower oil or the walnut or poppyseed oil or Castor Oil are sometimes used in formulating lighter colors like white because they "yellow" less on drying than linseed oil, but they have the slight drawback of drying more slowly and may not provide the strongest paint film. Linseed oil tends to dry yellow and can change

2821-459: The frontispiece of his book On the Nightmare (1931); however, neither Freud nor Jones mentioned these paintings in their writings about dreams. Carl Jung included The Nightmare and other of Fuseli works in his Man and His Symbols (1964). Oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as

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2912-557: The "mosaic" is completed and then left to dry before applying details. Artists in later periods, such as the Impressionist era (late 19th century), often expanded on this wet-on-wet method, blending the wet paint on the canvas without following the Renaissance-era approach of layering and glazing. This method is also called " alla prima ". This method was created due to the advent of painting outdoors, instead of inside

3003-651: The 16th century in Bavaria and Austria, including Albrecht Altdorfer , Wolf Huber and Augustin Hirschvogel . With Altdorfer in the lead, the school produced the first examples of independent landscape art in the West (nearly 1,000 years after China), in both paintings and prints. Their religious paintings had an expressionist style somewhat similar to Grünewald's. Dürer's pupils Hans Burgkmair and Hans Baldung Grien worked largely in prints, with Baldung developing

3094-476: The 16th century. The concept of the Northern Renaissance or German Renaissance is somewhat confused by the continuation of the use of elaborate Gothic ornament until well into the 16th century, even in works that are undoubtedly Renaissance in their treatment of the human figure and other respects. Classical ornament had little historical resonance in much of Germany, but in other respects Germany

3185-458: The 17th century and beyond. The panel is more expensive, heavier, harder to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel has an advantage. Some artists are now painting directly onto prepared Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) panels. Others combine the perceived benefits of canvas and panel by gluing canvas onto panels made from ACM, Masonite or other material. Oil paint

3276-699: The Alps. A particular form of Renaissance architecture in Germany is the Weser Renaissance , with prominent examples such as the City Hall of Bremen and the Juleum in Helmstedt . In July 1567 the city council of Cologne approved a design in the Renaissance style by Wilhelm Vernukken for a two storied loggia for Cologne City Hall . St Michael in Munich is the largest Renaissance church north of

3367-761: The Alps. It was built by Duke William V of Bavaria between 1583 and 1597 as a spiritual center for the Counter Reformation and was inspired by the Church of il Gesù in Rome. The architect is unknown. Many examples of Brick Renaissance buildings can be found in Hanseatic old towns, such as Stralsund , Wismar , Lübeck , Lüneburg , Friedrichstadt and Stade . Notable German Renaissance architects include Friedrich Sustris , Benedikt Rejt , Abraham van den Blocke , Elias Holl and Hans Krumpper . Born Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden, Johannes Gutenberg

3458-500: The Creature's murder of the protagonist Victor's wife seems to draw from the canvas: "She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by hair." The novel and Fuseli's biography share a parallel theme: just as Fuseli's incubus is infused with the artist's emotions in seeing Landholdt marry another man, Shelley's monster promises to get revenge on Victor on

3549-680: The Elder , a close friend of Luther, had painted a number of "Lutheran altarpieces", mostly showing the Last Supper , some with portraits of the leading Protestant divines as the Twelve Apostles . This phase of Lutheran art was over before 1550, probably under the more fiercely aniconic influence of Calvinism , and religious works for public display virtually ceased to be produced in Protestant areas. Presumably largely because of this,

3640-471: The Germanic tales about demons and witches that possessed people who slept alone. In these stories, men were visited by horses or hags , giving rise to the terms "hag-riding" and "mare-riding", and women were believed to engage in sex with the devil. The etymology of the word "nightmare", however, does not relate to horses. Rather it is derived from mara , a Scandinavian mythological term referring to

3731-520: The Gothic tradition of wood carving continued to flourish until the end of the 18th century, adapting to changes in style through the centuries. Veit Stoss (d. 1533), Tilman Riemenschneider (d.1531) and Peter Vischer the Elder (d. 1529) were Dürer's contemporaries, and their long careers covered the transition between the Gothic and Renaissance periods, although their ornament often remained Gothic even after their compositions began to reflect Renaissance principles. Renaissance architecture in Germany

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3822-467: The Holy Roman Empire) was one of the most prosperous areas in Europe despite a relatively low level of urbanization compared to Italy or the Netherlands. It benefited from the wealth of certain sectors such as metallurgy, mining, banking and textiles. More importantly, book-printing developed in Germany, and German printers dominated the new book-trade in most other countries until well into

3913-668: The achievement of Holbein or Dürer. The next significant German artists worked in the rather artificial style of Northern Mannerism , which they had to learn in Italy or Flanders. Hans von Aachen and the Netherlandish Bartholomeus Spranger were the leading painters at the Imperial courts in Vienna and Prague, and the productive Netherlandish Sadeler family of engravers spread out across Germany, among other counties. In Catholic parts of South Germany

4004-758: The art critic Nicholas Powell, the woman's pose may derive from the Vatican's Ariadne , and the style of the incubus from figures at Selinunte , an archaeological site in Sicily . A source for the woman in Giulio Romano 's The Dream of Hecuba at the Palazzo del Te has also been proposed. Powell links the horse to a woodcut by the German Renaissance artist Hans Baldung or to the marble Horse Tamers on Quirinal Hill , Rome. Fuseli may have added

4095-460: The artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint. Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits , or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower drying. (Because the solvents thin the oil in the paint, they can also be used to clean paint brushes.) A basic rule of oil paint application is ' fat over lean ', meaning that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than

4186-474: The bed; it is the woman in the foreground who is experiencing the nightmare and the incubus—which is crouched on the woman's stomach, facing her parted legs—has its tail nestling between her exposed breasts. The Nightmare likely influenced Mary Shelley in a scene from her 1818 Gothic novel Frankenstein . Shelley would have been familiar with the painting; her parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin , knew Fuseli. The iconic imagery associated with

4277-461: The boundaries of traditional representational painting. Artists like Jackson Pollock drew inspiration from Monet’s large-scale canvases and his focus on the physical process of painting, using techniques that emphasized the action of creating art over the final product. Vincent van Gogh's influence on modern art is equally significant, particularly through his emotive use of color and texture. His impasto technique, where thick layers of paint create

4368-409: The canvas and to cover the white of the gesso. Many artists use this layer to sketch out the composition. This first layer can be adjusted before proceeding further, an advantage over the "cartooning" method used in fresco technique. After this layer dries, the artist might then proceed by painting a "mosaic" of color swatches, working from darkest to lightest. The borders of the colors are blended when

4459-451: The canvas when necessary. A variety of unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used to apply or remove paint. Some artists even paint with their fingers . Old masters usually applied paint in thin layers known as "glazes" that allow light to penetrate completely through the layer, a method also simply called "indirect painting". This technique is what gives oil paintings their luminous characteristics. This method

4550-534: The development of German art had virtually ceased by about 1550, but in the preceding decades German artists had been very fertile in developing alternative subjects to replace the gap in their order books. Cranach, apart from portraits, developed a format of thin vertical portraits of provocative nudes, given classical or Biblical titles. Lying somewhat outside these developments is Matthias Grünewald , who left very few works, but whose masterpiece, his Isenheim Altarpiece (completed 1515), has been widely regarded as

4641-490: The early and mid-15th century were the first to make oil the usual painting medium and explore the use of layers and glazes , followed by the rest of Northern Europe, and then Italy. Such works were painted on wooden panels , but towards the end of the 15th century canvas began to be used as a support , as it was cheaper, easier to transport, allowed larger works, and did not require complicated preliminary layers of gesso (a fine type of plaster). Venice , where sail-canvas

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4732-613: The emerging split of the Protestant Reformation . Dürer died in 1528, before it was clear that the split of the Reformation had become permanent, but his pupils of the following generation were unable to avoid taking sides. Most leading German artists became Protestants, but this deprived them of painting most religious works, previously the mainstay of artists' revenue. Martin Luther had objected to much Catholic imagery, but not to imagery itself, and Lucas Cranach

4823-476: The greatest German Renaissance painting since it was restored to critical attention in the 19th century. It is an intensely emotional work that continues the German Gothic tradition of unrestrained gesture and expression, using Renaissance compositional principles, but all in that most Gothic of forms, the multi-winged triptych . The Danube School is the name of a circle of artists of the first third of

4914-538: The home of Fuseli's close friend and publisher Joseph Johnson , gracing his weekly dinners for London thinkers and writers. Fuseli painted other versions of which at least three survive. The most important second version was painted between 1790 and 1791 and is in the Goethe Museum in Frankfurt. It is smaller than the original, and the woman's head lies to the left; a mirror opposes her on the right. The demon

5005-630: The horse as an afterthought, since a preliminary chalk sketch did not include it. Its presence in the painting has been viewed as a visual pun on the word "nightmare" and a self-conscious reference to folklore—the horse destabilises the painting's conceit and contributes to its Gothic tone. The painting was first shown at the Royal Academy of London in 1782, where it "excited ... an uncommon degree of interest", according to Fuseli's early biographer and friend John Knowles . It remained well-known decades later, and Fuseli painted other versions on

5096-437: The hue of the color. In some regions, this technique is referred to as the drying oil technique. Recent advances in chemistry have produced modern water miscible oil paints that can be used and cleaned up with water. Small alterations in the molecular structure of the oil create this water miscible property. The earliest oil paintings were almost all panel paintings on wood, which had been seasoned and prepared in

5187-411: The incubus as a dream symbol of male libido , with the sexual act represented by the horse's intrusion through the curtain. The Royal Academy exhibition brought Fuseli and his painting enduring fame. The exhibition included Shakespeare-themed works by Fuseli, which won him a commission to produce eight paintings for publisher John Boydell 's Shakespeare Gallery . One version of The Nightmare hung in

5278-420: The late 15th century. From the Renaissance on, oil painting technology had almost completely replaced the earlier use of tempera paints in the majority of Europe. Most European Renaissance sources, in particular Vasari , falsely credit northern European painters of the 15th century, and Jan van Eyck in particular, with the invention of oil paints. However, Theophilus Presbyter (a pseudonymous author who

5369-427: The layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the final painting will crack and peel. The consistency on the canvas depends on the layering of the oil paint. This rule does not ensure permanence; it is the quality and type of oil that leads to a strong and stable paint film. Other media can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes. These additional media can aid

5460-478: The lead in developing book illustrations, typically of a relatively low artistic standard, but seen all over Europe, with the woodblocks often being lent to printers of editions in other cities or languages. The greatest artist of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer , began his career as an apprentice to a leading workshop in Nuremberg, that of Michael Wolgemut , who had largely abandoned his painting to exploit

5551-505: The most important German humanists was Konrad Celtis (1459–1508). Celtis studied at Cologne and Heidelberg , and later travelled throughout Italy collecting Latin and Greek manuscripts. Heavily influenced by Tacitus , he used the Germania to introduce German history and geography. Eventually he devoted his time to poetry, in which he praised Germany in Latin. Another important figure

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5642-581: The new medium. Dürer worked on the most extravagantly illustrated book of the period, the Nuremberg Chronicle , published by his godfather Anton Koberger , Europe's largest printer-publisher at the time. After completing his apprenticeship in 1490, Dürer travelled in Germany for four years, and Italy for a few months, before establishing his own workshop in Nuremberg. He rapidly became famous all over Europe for his energetic and balanced woodcuts and engravings, while also painting. Though retaining

5733-583: The night of his wedding. Like Frankenstein's monster, Fuseli's demon symbolically seeks to forestall a marriage. Edgar Allan Poe may have evoked The Nightmare in his 1839 short story " The Fall of the House of Usher ". His narrator compares a painting in Usher's house to a Fuseli work, and reveals that an "irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm". Poe and Fuseli shared an interest in

5824-541: The oil paint into the porous surface. Excessive or uneven gesso layers are sometimes visible on the surface of finished paintings as a change that's not from the paint. Standard sizes for oil paintings were set in France in the 19th century. The standards were used by most artists, not only the French, as it was—and still is—supported by the main suppliers of artists' materials. Size 0 ( toile de 0 ) to size 120 ( toile de 120 )

5915-435: The oil painting itself, to enable cleaning and conservation . Some contemporary artists decide not to varnish their work, preferring the surface unvarnished to avoid a glossy look. Oil painters such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh revolutionized the medium in ways that profoundly shaped the evolution of modern art. Their groundbreaking innovations in technique, color, and form redefined traditional oil painting and set

6006-536: The oil, are also visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use several different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium. The oil may be boiled with a resin , such as pine resin or frankincense , to create a varnish to provide protection and texture. The paint itself can be molded into different textures depending on its plasticity . Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with

6097-433: The overt sexuality of the painting, since interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Jungian ideas about the unconscious . After its debut at the 1782 Royal Academy of London , critics reacted with horrified fascination. The painting became widely popular to the extent that it was parodied in political satire, and engraved versions were widely distributed. In response, Fuseli produced at least three other versions. Today

6188-492: The painted surface. Among the earliest impasto effects, using a raised or rough texture in the surface of the paint, are those from the later works of the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini , around 1500. This became much more common in the 16th century, as many painters began to draw attention to the process of their painting, by leaving individual brushstrokes obvious, and a rough painted surface. Another Venetian, Titian ,

6279-481: The painter in adjusting the translucency of the paint, the sheen of the paint, the density or 'body' of the paint, and the ability of the paint to hold or conceal the brushstroke. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the expressive capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was most often transferred to the painting surface using paintbrushes , but there are other methods, including using palette knives and rags. Palette knives can scrape off any paint from

6370-473: The painting is housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts . The Nightmare simultaneously offers both the image of a dream—by indicating the effect of the nightmare on the woman—and a dream image—in symbolically portraying the sleeping vision. It depicts a sleeping woman draped over the end of a bed with her head hanging down, exposing her long neck. She is surmounted by an incubus that peers out at

6461-450: The previous method for painting on panel (tempera) had become all but extinct, although Italians continued to use chalk-based fresco for wall paintings, which was less successful and durable in damper northern climates. Renaissance techniques used several thin almost transparent layers or glazes , usually each allowed to dry before the next was added, greatly increasing the time a painting took. The underpainting or ground beneath these

6552-641: The range of painting media . This made portability difficult and kept most painting activities confined to the studio . This changed when tubes of oil paint became widely available following the American portrait painter John Goffe Rand 's invention of the squeezable or collapsible metal tube in 1841. Artists could mix colors quickly and easily, which enabled, for the first time, relatively convenient plein air painting (a common approach in French Impressionism ) The linseed oil itself comes from

6643-510: The same theme. Fuseli sold the original for twenty guineas , and an inexpensive engraving by Thomas Burke circulated widely beginning in January 1783, earning publisher John Raphael Smith more than 500 pounds . Both the English word nightmare and its German equivalent Albtraum ( literally ' elf dream ' ) evoke a malevolent being that causes bad dreams by sitting on the chest of

6734-644: The sleeper. Contemporary writers viewed the work's sexual themes as scandalous. A few years earlier Fuseli had fallen for Anna Landholdt in Zürich, while travelling from Rome to London. She was the niece of his friend the Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater . Fuseli wrote of his fantasies to Lavater in 1779: "Last night I had her in bed with me—tossed my bedclothes hugger-mugger—wound my hot and tight-clasped hands about her—fused her body and soul together with my own—poured into her my spirit, breath and strength. Anyone who touches her now commits adultery and incest! She

6825-508: The stage for various art movements that followed. Their influence extends through Expressionism, Fauvism, Abstract Expressionism, and beyond, fundamentally altering how contemporary artists approach color, texture, and emotional expression. Monet’s works, especially his later series like Water Lilies , are considered a precursor to abstract art. His emphasis on capturing the transient effects of light and his near-abstraction of form in his late works, such as Water Lilies: The Clouds (1920), pushed

6916-499: The subconscious; Fuseli is often quoted as saying that "one of the most unexplored regions of art are dreams". The painting reverberated with twentieth-century psychological theorists. In 1926, the American writer Max Eastman visited Sigmund Freud and saw a print of the painting next to Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson in Freud's apartment in Vienna . The Freud biographer Ernest Jones chose another version of Fuseli's painting as

7007-601: The tail of the Siberian weasel . This hair keeps a superfine point, has smooth handling, and good memory (it returns to its original point when lifted off the canvas), known to artists as a brush's "snap". Floppy fibers with no snap, such as squirrel hair, are generally not used by oil painters. In the past few decades, many synthetic brushes have been marketed. These are very durable and can be quite good, as well as cost efficient . Brushes come in multiple sizes and are used for different purposes. The type of brush also makes

7098-605: The topical subject matter of witches in a number of enigmatic prints. Hans Holbein the Elder and his brother Sigismund Holbein painted religious works in the late Gothic style. Hans the Elder was a pioneer and leader in the transformation of German art from the Gothic to the Renaissance style. His son, Hans Holbein the Younger was an important painter of portraits and a few religious works, working mainly in England and Switzerland. Holbein's well known series of small woodcuts on

7189-488: The use of egg tempera paints for panel paintings in most of Europe, though not for Orthodox icons or wall paintings, where tempera and fresco , respectively, remained the usual choice. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil , poppy seed oil , walnut oil , and safflower oil . The choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the paint , such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. The paint could be thinned with turpentine . Certain differences, depending on

7280-421: The viewer. The sleeper seems lifeless and lies on her back in a position then believed to encourage nightmares. Her brilliant coloration is set against the darker reds, yellows and ochres of the background; Fuseli used a chiaroscuro effect to create strong contrasts between light and shade. The interior is contemporary and fashionable and contains a small table on which rests a mirror, phial , and book. The room

7371-530: Was Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Butler and Baker of Pharaoh (1768), and later he produced The Shepherd's Dream (1798) inspired by John Milton 's Paradise Lost , and Richard III Visited by Ghosts (1798) based on Shakespeare's play . Fuseli's knowledge of art history was broad, allowing critics to propose sources for the painting's elements in antique, classical, and Renaissance art. According to

7462-507: Was Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) who studied in various places in Italy and later taught Greek. He studied the Hebrew language , aiming to purify Christianity, but encountered resistance from the church. The most significant German Renaissance artist is Albrecht Dürer especially known for his printmaking in woodcut and engraving , which spread all over Europe, drawings, and painted portraits. Important architecture of this period includes

7553-575: Was a Protestant Reformer who criticized church practices such as selling indulgences, against which he published in his Ninety-Five Theses of 1517. Luther also translated the Bible into German, making the Christian scriptures more accessible to the general population and inspiring the standardization of the German language. Paracelsus (1493-1541) Paracelsus

7644-446: Was a leader in this. In the 17th century some artists, including Rembrandt , began to use dark grounds. Until the mid-19th century, there was a division between artists who exploited "effects of handling" in their paintwork, and those who continued to aim at "an even, glassy surface from which all evidences of manipulation had been banished". Before the 19th century, artists or their apprentices ground pigments and mixed their paints for

7735-465: Was easily available, was a leader in the move to canvas. Small cabinet paintings were also made on metal, especially copper plates. These supports were more expensive but very firm, allowing intricately fine detail. Often printing plates from printmaking were reused for this purpose. The increasing use of oil spread through Italy from Northern Europe, starting in Venice in the late 15th century. By 1540,

7826-546: Was first perfected through an adaptation of the egg tempera painting technique (egg yolks used as a binder, mixed with pigment), and was applied by the Early Netherlandish painters in Northern Europe with pigments usually ground in linseed oil . This approach has been called the "mixed technique" or "mixed method" in modern times. The first coat (the underpainting ) is laid down, often painted with egg tempera or turpentine-thinned paint. This layer helps to "tone"

7917-642: Was inspired first by German philosophers and artists such as Albrecht Dürer and Johannes Reuchlin who visited Italy. Important early examples of this period are especially the Landshut Residence , the Castle in Heidelberg , Johannisburg Palace in Aschaffenburg , Schloss Weilburg , the City Hall and Fugger Houses in Augsburg and St. Michael in Munich , the largest Renaissance church north of

8008-475: Was made in Venice and so easily available and cheaper than wood. Smaller paintings, with very fine detail, were easier to paint on a very firm surface, and wood panels or copper plates, often reused from printmaking , were often chosen for small cabinet paintings even in the 19th century. Portrait miniatures normally used very firm supports, including ivory , or stiff paper card. Traditional artists' canvas

8099-581: Was mainly known through his prints . He successfully integrated an elaborate Northern style with Renaissance harmony and monumentality. Among his best known works are Melencolia I , the Four Horsemen from his woodcut Apocalypse series, and Knight, Death, and the Devil . Other significant artists were Lucas Cranach the Elder , the Danube School and the Little Masters . Martin Luther

8190-414: Was usually white (typically gesso coated with a primer), allowing light to reflect through the layers. But van Eyck, and Robert Campin a little later, used a wet-on-wet technique in places, painting a second layer soon after the first. Initially, the aim was, as with the established techniques of tempera and fresco , to produce a smooth surface when no attention was drawn to the brushstrokes or texture of

8281-525: Was very quick to follow developments, especially in adopting printing with movable type , a German invention that remained almost a German monopoly for some decades, and was first brought to most of Europe , including France and Italy, by Germans. Printmaking by woodcut and engraving was already more developed in Germany and the Low Countries than elsewhere in Europe, and the Germans took

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