Thetis Mourning the Body of Achilles

Thetis Mourning the Body of Achilles

Henry Fuseli, 1780

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Artist: Henry Fuseli (Swiss, 1741–1825)
Medium: Brush and brown and brownish-red wash, over graphite, on cream laid paper
Size: 41 × 55.7 cm (16 3/16 × 21 15/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Many of the formulae of Fuseli’s idiosyncratic style are present in this powerful drawing: a stage-like setting, extreme contrasts of light and dark, exaggerated gestures, and dramatic foreshortening. All of these are combined in a drama of mythical intensity rendered in boldly applied washes. The dead Achilles fills the foreground, sprawled upon his shield. His mother, the goddess Thetis, emerges from a rocky outcropping at right, her arms spread in grief. In the distance, the airborne hero’s spirit rides his shield to the afterlife. One of the three Greek inscriptions Fuseli included on the sheet is from Homer’s Odyssey: “And thou in the whirl of dust didst lie mighty in thy mightiness.”

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.

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