Symplegmas: The Erotic Drawings of Henry Fuseli

Gothic fantasies and Shakespeare plays 

Henri Fuseli (Füssli) was a Swiss- English artist who lived in London between 1764 and 1825.  Between 1770 and 1778 Fuseli traveled to Rome where he changed his name from Füssli to Fuseli. He was a friend and a contemporary of the English artist and poet William Blake. 

Fuseli is perhaps best-known for The Nightmare, (fig 1) a painting depicting a woman asleep with a creature crouched on her chest. The work was characteristic of the gothic fantasies popular during that period and was reproduced numerous times. He later used the same painting style to illustrate many of Shakespeare’s plays including Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Titania awakes fig 2.) Although these kind of works earned Fuseli a place in art history they also revealed his interest in painting subjects of a more erotic nature.

Fig.1  The Nightmare, 1781

Fig.2  Titania Awakes, c.1793-94

Symplegma of a man with three women

Fuseli gave expression to this interest in the sustained production of highly developed erotic drawings he referred to as symplegma. Symplegma is simply an art historical term given to works of art that contain scenes of sexual intercourse. It was certainly the word that Fuseli used to describe his many erotic drawings of couples and threesomes. His best example is a drawing titled Symplegma of a man with three women (fig 3).This and other drawings by Fuseli go beyond being mere sketches and seem like finished works onto themselves. They could be studies for full paintings, though audiences may not have been ready for full blown sensuality in the museums of England at the time. But the erotically charged works of French painters like Francois Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) would not have been lost on Fuseli. Fuseli’s sketches might also have influenced French painter Théodore Géricault who had traveled to London in 1820. Three Lovers, (fig 4.) isa work eerily similar to Fuseli’s drawings but given full free reign in paint.

Fig.3  Symplegma of a Man with Three Women, 1770-78

Fig.4  Three Lovers, 1817-1820 by Théodore Géricault 

Fuseli’s Hairstyle Fetish

In all his works Fuseli gives particular attention, to the point of seeming like a fetish from today’s vantage point, to the hairstyles of the women, but it is especially pronounced in his drawings.  Whether this is a revisionist reading is open to interpretation. It is clear, however, that feminine hairstyle, beginning with Marie Antoinette’s over the top do’s while at Louis XVI’s court, to the Empire fashion styles of Josephine Bonaparte, to the hairstyles of English courtesans would have all been elements of fashion to be followed by artists during Fuseli’s time. But in Fuseli’s drawings the hairstyles stand out and his handling of them give a unique contemporary quality to his erotic scenes. 

Fig.5  Reading to the Hess Sisters, 1778

Fig.6  Woman with her Dress Pulled up over her Buttocks Standing at a Dressing Table with Phallic Supports, c.1790

In the extended Premium edition you can explore, among other things,  analysis of Fuseli’s hairstyle fetish, more on his muses and models, his cultural environment, numerous enticing pics and more!

Click HERE for 14 dirty erotic secrets of Rembrandt van Rijn revealed

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