The Desire for Terror in 18th-Century British Paintings

Introduction

During the 18th century, a keen interest in gloomy atmospheres, obscure themes, and mystical subjects developed in British society. It appeared in literature with the Gothic Revival, but also in architecture, in which medieval forms were reinvested. Even paintings fell in line with the trend of the awful, aiming to provoke in the viewer a feeling oscillating between fascination and profound terror. To achieve this, several artists relied on the sublime. Although the notion of the sublime existed before the publication in 1757 of Edmund Burke’s seminal essay, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Burke was the first to explain methodically how it worked and what it was linked with, and to set out to understand but also to anatomise the attraction for the "steep and terrible" (Owens, 2020, 138-139). That is why Burke was considered to be at the origin of the 18th- and early 19th-centuries taste for sublime themes in literature and painting. Even though, according to Burke, visual media were not able to create the sublime, British painters regularly tried to prove him wrong (Ibata, 2018, 7-8).

This paper will examine how artists relied on Burke’s theory to make their works a perfect visual interpretation of the awful, that which is simultaneously feared and desired. Burke’s ideas were transposed by painters to landscape paintings, usually in large formats, in which small human figures were represented in a state of distress when facing the daunting spectacle of nature’s grandeur. The alliance of admiration and fear could also be found in paintings depicting human acts of bravery, inspired by biblical or mythical episodes, against incarnations of evil: these scenes were the sources of aesthetic and moral rapture. Finally, and quite obviously, the female body was a favoured motif to express both desire and fear. Indeed, the female body represented perfection but was also, paradoxically, considered as the source of all sins.

1. “Beauty, Horror and Immensity united”: sublime landscapes

Landscape paintings became quite popular in the United Kingdom during the 18th century. Since the 17th century, there had been two forms of landscape paintings: one identified with the works of Claude Lorrain, called landscape beauty, and another known as sublime landscape, associated with the depictions of wilderness by Salvator Rosa (Klonk, 1996, 9). To understand the mixture between fascination and terror, one may first focus one’s attention on sublime landscapes. These landscapes were showing “Beauty, Horror and Immensity united” ((Dr John Brown of St John's College, Cambridge wrote to Lord Lyttelton, probably in 1753: “the perfection of KESWICK consists of three circumstances, Beauty, Horror and Immensity united” (quoted in Bicknell, 1981, x).)), three circumstances that were fundamental requirements to generate desire and fright at the same time. Multiple examples show that they were widely chosen to recreate the feeling of the sublime in the arts.

1.1 About the sublime

The feeling of the sublime was described by Edmund Burke as the pleasure we feel when we are faced with a situation that could endanger our lives but we know we are safe. In the Enquiry, he stated: “The passions which belong to self-preservation [...] are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being actually in such circumstances [...]. Whatever excites this delight, I call sublime” (Burke, 1998, 43). However, according to Burke, painting was incapable of producing the effect of the sublime because it was an art of imitation and clear delimitation ((See the analysis by Hélène Ibata in IBATA, Hélène. 2018. The Challenge of the Sublime. From Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry to British Romantic Art. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp.3-8; and by Paul Duro in DURO, Paul. 2013. “Observations on the Burkean Sublime”, Word and Image, 29:1, pp.40-58.)). The search for the sublime through painting therefore became a challenge that artists strove to meet throughout the second half of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century. Recognising this tension between Burke’s text and artistic attempts at the sublime meant understanding the fascination exerted by this aesthetic concept on artists of the period. This pictorial quest for the sublime thus gave rise to new visual forms: “Vast, dramatic natural scenery, together with supernatural or apocalyptic subject matter, were given aesthetic legitimacy, inspiring new artistic endeavours” (Ibata, 2018, 8).

1.2 The greatness of nature against the smallness of human beings

1.2.1 "What are men to rocks and mountains?"

As she accepts an invitation to travel to the lakes, Elizabeth Bennett, the main character of Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, asks herself: “what are men to rocks and mountains?” (Austen, 1998, 119). The question highlights the insignificance and ephemerality of human life compared to the permanence of geological formations. In choosing landscape painting, 18th- and 19th-century artists recognised that nature had great sublime potential, which they sought to exploit in their work. In sublime landscapes, it was the contrast between human smallness and the grandeur of nature that gave rise to the feeling of terrifying fascination which was characteristic of the sublime. Paintings of the overwhelming strength of nature thus tended to suffocate the human figure in the painting but also the spectator. Landscapes were deemed able to recreate the sublime because they extended beyond the canvas and exceeded the strict limits of pictorial representation that Burke found restrictive.

In Gordale Scar, James Ward represents a real place near Settle in Yorkshire, but takes liberties with scale by deliberately painting the herd grazing in the lower part of the canvas in miniature. The two huge rocks occupy more than three-quarters of the upper part of the composition, leaving the viewer bewildered by their imposing sculptural presence. The sheer size of the canvas, over three metres high and four metres wide, contributes to this feeling of horrified awe. The stark contrast between the dark, cloudy, heavy sky on the one hand and the softer colours of the meadow and livestock on the other heightens the sense of fracture between the dangerous wilderness and the frail living beings, unaware of the crushing forces of nature.

John Martin uses similar techniques in The Bard. The cattle are replaced by a small army in the lower left-hand section of the canvas, while an immense rock occupies the right-hand section of the composition. At the top of the cliff, overlooking a river, stands the bard, who seems dwarfed by the surrounding landscape. His overhanging position gives him importance, but the grandeur of the landscape makes him seem inoffensive. The subject of the painting was taken from a poem of the same name by Thomas Gray, published in 1755, which is believed to have been inspired by Edward 1^st’s massacre of the Scots, the only survivor of which was said to be a bard. This subject had already been dealt with by other artists, such as Loutherbourg and Fuseli (Feaver, Johnson, 1970, 14-15). Martin’s interpretation differs from that of other artists in its investment in the sublime, which is demonstrated by the representation of the landscape as the dominant element. In the background is a steep, snowy mountain around which the clouds seem to swirl violently. Below is a castle in a fortified town with high walls and wide towers. Martin’s painting is also perfectly in keeping with Gray’s poem, which depicts the “foaming flood” of the river, the irregular foliage, the jutting rocks and the hard blue of the mountain peaks. Even the bard matched the description, with his “haggard eye […] and hoary hair” (Gray, 1970, 8).

In both Gordale Scar and The Bard, nature is not represented as a direct threat to man; it is simply its grandeur and power that inspire a frightening fascination.

1.2.2 "It is nature herself that causes havoc to man"

However, it seemed that the best way to show the power of nature over man at the time was to paint him in the grip of natural disasters. These paintings in which “it is nature herself that causes havoc to man” (Vaughan, 1999, 227) exemplified the frailty of human life facing between natural forces as in John Martin’s The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

This painting illustrates the powerlessness of two entire cities in the face of the violence of a volcanic eruption. The sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum were discovered in the 18^th century and fascinated artists at the time. Martin’s depiction of the eruption is based on elements brought to light by archaeological excavations and on the only direct testimony of the eruption, that of Pliny the Younger, for this history painting. The unobstructed view chosen to represent the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August the 24^th, 79 AD, allows the public to see both Pompeii and Herculaneum. The viewer is placed on the shores of the town of Stabiae, on the other side of the Bay of Naples. Herculaneum is painted on the left-hand side of the canvas, already devastated by lava and struck by a flash of blue light, while Pompeii occupies the centre and left-hand side of the composition. The buildings still visible in the painting are modelled after the amphitheatre and the basilica which had been discovered during contemporary excavations. The sense of dread conveyed by this scene is heightened by the addition of the few survivors who managed to get out of the cities before the eruption and cross the Bay of Naples. Among them, Pliny the Elder (in red on the right) is shown collapsing in the arms of his friend Pomponianus. Pliny the Younger’s account recorded the scene as taking place in broad daylight, but specified that the sky was completely blacked out, the only source of light coming from the eruption. The red hue of the canvas therefore derives from the bright red colour of the lava, which rises in columns before raining down on the towns and contaminating the entire composition. Only the blue lightning bolts, whose presence was praised by critics at the time ((“The blue lightening has a vigorous effect, and saves the picture from the absolute tyranny of a scarlet tone” (Myrone, 2011, 111).)), breaks the uniformity of colour (Myrone, 2011, 109).

Among the natural phenomena that render man powerless, two types of situations were also represented by two of the major artists who painted sublime landscapes: scenes of shipwreck, which reflected the power of the ocean, and dangerous situations in the mountains, which illustrated the strength of snowstorms. Both subjects were painted by Loutherbourg and Turner.

Loutherbourg painted several scenes of shipwreck on the open sea, showing the superior power of the ocean over man. A Shipwreck perfectly conveys man’s weakness in the face of the immense wave rising above the frail boat. Loutherbourg included a group of men in the foreground, in a supernatural light, trying to resist the torments of natural forces, while the background disappears into a disquieting half-light. In this painting, a group of five sailors ran aground on the rocks and are trying to pull their boat to safety. The boat is difficult to make out on the right-hand side of the canvas. Two men are pulling a rope at the end of which appears to be a piece of the ship, while the boat itself is still some distance away. One of the sailors is praying, his hands clasped above his head, while the other two are trying to extricate themselves from the tumultuous sea. They are not completely out of danger and are about to be hit by another huge wave, which is emphasised by the light shining on it through a gap in the thick, dark clouds. We can make out a steep cliff on the right and the infinite expanse of water on the left. This allows the viewer to imagine the scene beyond the frame of the canvas and makes the situation all the more sublime because it is immeasurable.

Turner also painted a shipwreck in a sublime landscape almost forty years after Loutherbourg. The human distress in the face of the ocean is even greater than in Loutherbourg’s painting, because the viewer is not watching the scene from a safe, remote location; instead, he or she is thrown into the middle of the rough sea, among the waves. The boats are in danger, as the sloping sail of the boat on the right and the submerged remains of a ship in the foreground on the left suggest. The uncertainty about the outcome of this situation makes it even more terrifying (Vaughan, 1999, 228).

On the other hand, mountain landscapes were apt to produce a feeling of striking admiration. Loutherbourg and Turner favoured the Alpine landscape to depict scenes involving the force of the snow, represented by an avalanche and a snowstorm in the following examples.

In An Avalanche in the Alps, Loutherbourg gives a noble dimension to a contemporary subject by bringing in fate as a superhuman force. Fate was indeed at stakes in episodes depicted by history painting (Vaughan, 1999, 227). The point of view chosen by the artist is remote from the dramatic scene, allowing the viewer to contemplate the terrifying situation from a place of relative safety. The canvas is divided in two by a clear diagonal that runs from the top left-hand corner to the bottom right-hand corner. The men and their dog, who have escaped the avalanche, are in the lower left-hand corner, as if crushed by the imposing rocks above them. Their theatrical postures express horror and one of them resorts to praying, as in The Shipwreck (c.1770). The upper right-hand section is dedicated to the striking depiction of the avalanche. It starts from a point that is not visible in the painting and seems to emerge from the half-light. The avalanche has already shattered the frail wooden bridge on which one of the members of the procession are standing; only one of his arms remains visible. The force of the avalanche is suggested by the rocks that it carried with it. The sensational contrast between the two parts of the composition is created by the opposition between the earthy darkness on the left and the bluish whiteness of the snow on the right (Klonk, 1996, 10).

Turner’s Hannibal Crossing the Alps is a history painting, as the artist depicts the legendary journey of the Carthaginian general’s army across the Alps to conquer Rome. The painting shows how dangerous and difficult the crossing was. The army occupies only the bottom quarter of the composition, leaving most of the canvas to the blurred representation of ethereal meteorological powers, such as clouds, snow, wind, fog (Kriz, 1997, 1-2): “The small scale of the figures also made its own point about the relative frailty of man in the hands of the forces of destiny” (Vaughan, 1999, 228). This indomitable nature, along with the local tribes, brings men to the ground, some lying apparently lifeless, others raising their arms to the sky in a gesture of despair or ready to attack. Hope is represented by the sun, which can be seen through the clouds, and the golden light in the left background of the composition, which suggests the imminent arrival in Italy.

Through these different examples, we can see how artists expressed the pre-eminence of nature over man, a frail creature. However, other powers could also give rise to a feeling of sublime in painting.

1.3 Divine wraths

A divine power expressed through a terrifying and fascinating event could indeed also give rise to the sublime. Divine wrath was the subject of numerous stories that artists transcribed in paintings. These representations of episodes from mythology or the Bible straddled the line between landscape painting and history painting.

1.3.1 Mythological subjects

The Destruction of the Children of Niobe by Apollo and Artemis is Richard Ward’s pictorial interpretation of an episode of divine wrath from Greco-Roman mythology, and it is one of the earliest examples of the appropriation of history painting by landscape painting. This 1760 work uses a wild, stormy landscape, a subject in itself, as the setting for an equally wild scene (Baetjer, 1993, 19). The meteorologically violent landscape is here a response to the violence of divine revenge on Niobe’s offspring. Indeed, according to the myth, Niobe had twelve children (or fourteen, depending on the version of the myth) and proudly boasted that she was superior to the goddess Leto, who only had two: Apollo and Artemis. The goddess sent her children to kill all of Niobe’s children with arrows on Mount Sipylos in Phrygia. This particular pictorial representation depicts the massacre of the offspring, some lying on the ground, others trying to flee on horseback or, on the contrary, embracing their fate. The painting was well-received when it was exhibited, although Sir Joshua Reynolds regretted that the artist had insisted on depicting Apollo and Artemis, carried by a cloud, between the trees on the left ((“…a very admirable picture of a storm… many figures are introduced in the fore-ground, some in apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by the lightning; had not the painter injudiciously (as I think) rather chosen that their death should be imputed to a little Apollo who appears in the sky, with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the children of Niobe”. (Sir Joshua Reynolds quoted in Vaughan, 1999, 224).)). Reynolds would have preferred the divine wrath to be seen only in the lightning in the background, which he felt was sufficient to understand the scene.

1.3.2 Biblical episodes

John Martin painted a lot of episodes of divine wrath. His subjects were generally taken from the Bible, as with this painting of Belshazzar’s Feast.

Belshazzar’s Feast is representative of John Martin’s style in his painting of biblical themes. Its subject is taken from the Old Testament: here, God is striking down the enemies of the Jewish people, represented by Belshazzar, a Babylonian king. During his reign, Belshazzar plundered the relics of the Jewish people and gave a huge feast during which everyone drank from these relics. In the Bible, he was punished by God, as we see in this work, while the Persians invaded Babylon. The grandeur of the scene is, in this painting, accentuated by the impressive architecture that serves as the setting for the episode. Martin claimed his painting was based on historical sources and maintained that he had not exaggerated the scale of the buildings (Vaughan, 1999, 233-236). The warm colours of the lower two-thirds of the canvas contrast with the darkness and coldness of the lightning-filled sky. Although the Babylonians are in the foreground, they are painted in miniature compared to the immensity of the buildings, and their terror is only visible through their theatrical gestures (Feaver and Johnson, 1970, 15).

There are many similarities between Belshazzar’s Feast and The Deluge, two canvases depicting men whose lives are threatened by the wrath of God. Martin was a popular painter who painted for the people, and took advantage of the taste of his contemporaries for exaggerated terror. He therefore adapted to the desire for horrifying, grandiloquent scenes: “It is an exercise in the Sublime, taking the aesthetic of fear to a new height” (Vaughan, 1999, 233). In all his works, man is depicted as a creature whose smallness is insignificant in comparison with the vast spaces that dominated him, revealing a Lutheran attitude of awareness of the mediocrity of human existence in the face of the world. In Martin’s paintings, the environment usually takes centre stage, while the human element is reduced, often placed in the shadows, as in the works of Loutherbourg: “Thus the human element was scaled down, the setting became the prime concern” (Feaver and Johnson, 1970, 6). The overwhelming scale, the sometimes blinding colours and the theatrical lighting effects of these sublime scenes reflect the quest for sensation (Myrone and Insley, 2019, 190). In this painting, the public faces the apotheosis of sublime horror through the mixture of elements that come from other paintings: “The composition of the inky black clouds swirling round a central pool of unearthly light is similar to Turner’s Hannibal; and the cataract of falling rocks to Loutherbourg’s Avalanche, both in the Tate Gallery” (Bicknell, 1981, 73). The exceptional nature of the moment is represented by the conjunction of the sun, the moon and a comet: time no longer exists.

However, nature and the divine were not the only sources of the sublime in painting. Some human actions took on a dimension of terrifying fascination depending on how they were depicted.

2. Human heroic actions

2.1 Human beings' impact on nature

In Coalbrookdale by Night, Loutherbourg secularised the biblical subjects treated by Martin. Here, he offers a depiction of hell with its unbearable glowing heat in the form of a factory with furnaces running in the night (Owens, 2020, 143; Roston, 1990, 250). The building was actually an iron foundry located on the banks of the River Severn in Shropshire, which was a touristic destination at the time. Here, Loutherbourg presents English industry as the modern version of hell. This spectacle of terrifying fascination is not the product of natural forces: it was created by man, thanks to the industrial revolution which gave him superior power. Man is depicted in the course of his laborious efforts to tame the elements and dominate nature: “In this spectacular, uncomfortable, hard-working landscape, the very laws of nature seem to have been overturned” (Vaughan, 1999, 227). The fact that the scene takes place at night lends an air of mystery to the painting, the darkness adding to the sublime effect. Sensation therefore takes precedence over a clear understanding of the subject.

2.2 Heroic scenes in a terrifying context

Landscape played an important part in the sublime effect of paintings, even when the artistic work was about the fascinating destiny of one man, as in John Martin’s Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion. Here, the magnificence of the landscape responds to and illustrates the grandeur of Sadak’s deeds. The subject of this painting is taken from James Ridley’s The Tales of the Genii, a collection of pastiches of oriental tales: Sadak was a wealthy and learned nobleman who undertook a dangerous journey to bring back some of the Waters of Oblivion in exchange for the return of his wife, who had been abducted by the Sultan. The painting shows Sadak climbing a rock in the lower part of the picture and the vertical format of the canvas emphasises the man’s ascent: the entire upper part of the canvas shows the rocky precipices he still has to climb, and the sky is almost absent from the composition. The perspective and framing are unconventional and may disorientate the viewer. The red hue permeates the entire composition, except for the blue lightning bolt in the centre of the canvas, the clarity of the cascading water and the reflection of a supernatural light on the rock Sadak is climbing. These effects of framing, colour and light reinforce the sublime feeling provoked by the painting (Myrone, 2011, 68-70).

If men’s action on nature was what made them worthy of the sublime, it was not the case for women: their bodies alone were, from a male painter’s perspective, enough to make them both terrifying and fascinating.

3. Women's bodies: desired and feared

The female body was presented as the object of desire, but also the embodiment of evil. Fuseli’s work was particularly well-suited to dealing with the double-edged sword of the female body, as the artist used it in compositions that created the effect of the sublime. He was familiar with this aesthetic concept, as evidenced by his personal library, which included Pseudo-Longin’s Treaty on the Sublime, Price’s Essay on the Picturesque and Burke’s Enquiry (Padilla, 2009, 10-11). In his Lectures on Painting given at the Royal Academy, Fuseli also emphasised the importance of unlimitedness and darkness in creating the effect of the sublime, which was why he often used chiaroscuro in his work: “surround the horrid vision with darkness, exclude its limits, and shear its light to glimpses” (Fuseli, 1820, 187).

3.1 Evil and the female body

In The Mandrake: A Charm, Fuseli blends the frightening theme of witchcraft with that of feminine beauty. This blend is reminiscent of the belief that women are linked to evil forces:  beneath their great beauty, they conceal a terrifying nature with supernatural powers. The subject of the painting is taken from a scene in Ben Jonson’s play The Masque of Queens (1609), in which witches need a mandrake to prepare a potion. Here, the witch is disproportionately tall, huddled within a circle on the floor. She is extracting a mandrake, a plant sometimes associated with fertility or used as a sedative. Mandrakes, whose roots resemble human torsos, were considered diabolical and often feature in stories of witchcraft. Above the witch is an indeterminate flying creature that appears to be ridden by another witch. This core image is surrounded by elements that seem to have nothing to do with the situation: a child is trapped in the red circle alongside the witch, stretching out his arms as if trying to catch the flying creature, and behind them stands an attractive young woman dressed in 18^th-century British fashion. The work was described as disgusting by critics at the time of its exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1785, although this disgust was counterbalanced by the desirable female presence ((“We have frequently had occasion to admire the enthusiasm and eccentricity of this artist’s imagination; but here it is genius tun mad. Painters have various objects. If that of Mr Fuseli, in the present picture, was to excite disgust, he has completely attained it; yet, however strange his witches, their daughters appear to be more fashionable beings [...]” (Morning Post, 5 May 1785 quoted in Myrone, 2006, 133).)). The contrast between the repulsive medieval appearance of the witch and the modern appearance of the female figure makes this scene both terrifying and fascinating.

In Sin Pursued by Death, Fuseli represents the allegory of sin as a naked woman with very pale skin, sensual curves, long blonde hair and ruddy lips. Here, Fuseli establishes a link between woman and evil. This painting is inspired by a passage in Milton’s Paradise Lost (Book II, 787, 790-792) in which the gender of Sin is not determined, while Death is represented as male. Fuseli goes against the text by embodying Sin in the form of a woman and leaving Death undetermined. Death is a sort of grey silhouette, with only its left hand visible at the level of Sin’s chest, blending into the darkness of the background. Its blurred figure corresponds to Burke’s recommendations for the effect of the sublime (Calè, 2006, 150-151): “But let it be considered that hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds [...]” (Burke, 2015, 52). Indeed, in the engraving made by Moses Haughton from Fuseli’s painting, Death’s silhouette is more defined, and the terrifying sensation of indeterminacy is largely lost, as the long dark robe and crown on Death’s skull are clearly visible: the clearer depiction takes away some of its frightening dimension.

When associated with sin and temptation, the female body thus appeared terrifying; however, the situation in which this body was trapped might also be the source of fear for the viewers.

3.2 Vulnerable feminine beauty in a frightening context

In the Gothic literature of the 18^th century, women were seen as powerless creatures, subjected to monsters they could not control. An iconography of women in a position of weakness, in the grip of a terrifying situation, developed alongside this literature. Few artists directly illustrated subjects from Gothic literature, which was not considered noble enough to be represented by the fine arts. In The Nightmare, Fuseli drew on a wide variety of sources that appeal to the supernatural and the horrific, but in a way which was considered sufficiently suitable for the art of painting (Myrone, 2006, 101).

Three main elements make up the composition of The Nightmare: the horse’s head, inspired by ancient statuary and Italian Renaissance paintings; the incubus – a kind of demon that took on a human male guise in order to have sexual relations with women –, taken from Nordic sources that fascinated Fuseli; and the young woman, whose pose is redolent of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Death of Dido, itself inspired by a Renaissance painting. Lying on her back, the young woman is in a position of vulnerability and powerlessness, and is immersed in a nightmare from which she cannot wake up. Her body, with its sensual curves, is exposed to the viewer’s gaze. Fuseli’s aim is to make the audience feel the terror that this woman is experiencing in her nightmare, rather than actually showing the content of the nightmare. The horse’s glassy white eyes are frightening. The incubus crouching on the woman’s stomach evokes a feeling of suffocating oppression, the nightmare’s domination over the woman and the possible sexual assault she is being subjected to. The chiaroscuro of the painting highlights the virginal purity of the woman, soiled by the evil darkness of the incubus and the night that envelops her, making the nightmare all the more terrifying. The frightening aspect of this painting also lays in its striking actuality: Fuseli mixes mythological and ancient evil elements with contemporary furniture, suggesting that this nightmare could plague any member of the audience. This painting, which perfectly blends the grotesque and the erotic, surprised the public in the 18^th century because it did not exactly correspond to what was expected of academic painting at the time.

The weak woman of Gothic literature was also prey to her passions and emotions. Many theories on female hysteria and the origin of madness appeared in the 18^th century. William Cowper wrote a poem entitled “Crazy Kate”, which inspired Fuseli’s Mad Kate. The poem describes the madness and wandering of a young woman who has learned of the death of the sailor she loved (Baker, Beyer and Curie, 2022, 25). Fuseli’s portrait of her is both seductive and striking. The young woman with her long chestnut hair, elegantly dressed and wearing a bonnet tied around her neck, is made to look as pleasing as possible. However, her wide eyes, her fingers frozen in mid-air and her bare feet as she stands outside are clues to the madness that has overtaken her. The landscape is shaken by a storm that lifts her clothes and her hair, which are blown by wind: the meteorological storm is therefore a metaphor for the storm within her. The background is indistinct, creating doubts about the woman’s whereabouts, and the darkness of the lower foreground gives the impression that Kate is emerging from dark depths.

For his Bertalda Frightened by Apparitions, Theodor Von Holst took up the codes used by Fuseli, i.e. the association of a seductive and desirable female figure with a terrifying fantasy subject. The subject of the painting is taken from the tale Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1843): Von Holst illustrates the moment when Bertalda is welcomed into the home of the couple Huldbrand and Undine, and becomes haunted by visions and evil spirits in order to keep her away from Huldbrand. In this painting, Bertalda is depicted as a pretty, young girl with curly blonde hair and generous curves. What we see seems to be her reflection in a mirror. She is startled to discover that she is not alone in the room: she is surrounded by two richly dressed and coiffed women who are threatening her with their long fingernails and are seemingly whispering horrors in her ear. A black cat with yellow eyes and a man wrapped in a greyish cloak, which gives him a frightening air of mystery, look at her in a terrifying manner. The contrast between the pretty young woman illuminated by a ray of light and the evil creatures around her mixes the audience’s feelings of desire and terror. Bertalda’s wide eyes conveys the dread that runs through her.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, one may say that throughout the second half of the 18^th century and the beginning of the 19^th century, terror and desire were combined in paintings through the aesthetic concept of the sublime. The sublime landscape showed the grandeur of nature and of the divine powers that could crush insignificant men at any moment. When it came to landscapes over which man had an influence, they could show what man is capable of, whether good or bad. Finally, at the end of the period, it was no longer so much the landscape that was sublime as the depiction of the duality of the woman, both desirable and frightening, in situations that were themselves terrifying.

In the second half of the 19^th century, the sublime went out of fashion, but Victorian artists continued to combine terror and desire in their works in other forms. Pre-Raphaelite paintings appropriated the tension between these two emotions in their own way by showing the terror of desire more than the desire of terror.

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Pour citer cette ressource :

Agathe Viffray, The Desire for Terror in 18th-Century British Paintings, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), décembre 2024. Consulté le 21/12/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/arts/peinture/the-desire-for-terror-in-18th-century-british-paintings