The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments
by FUSELI, John Henry, Red chalk on sepia wash, 415 x 355 mm
The young Henry Fuseli, in the late 1770s, portrayed himself reduced to despair before the vastness of Rome’s remains. Since he had spent eight years studying in the city, his awe was doubtless exaggerated, but it was also a premonition of the powerful emotions that were to be released in his art.