Today’s Art History love: “Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers” by Henry Fuseli, painted in 1812.
According to the Tate’s website, this piece is “is probably a sketch for an intended larger work”, but I love this sketch’s rough intimacy, darkness, and terror as is.
“Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers” by Henry Fuseli (1812)
Here, Lady Macbeth is seizing the daggers to return to the crime scene and frame King Duncan’s attendants for his murder, which Macbeth cannot bring himself to do.
What’s the saying? Bitches get stuff done? Hell yeah. I love Lady Macbeth, she’s one of my favorite Shakespeare characters.
I love the way Lady Macbeth is lunging forward, face stern and action sure. Her husband physically recoils from both her and the daggers he’s presenting, stricken with horror at what he’s done.
Lady Macbeth’s dress flows out behind her, shaped like a bat’s wing. The wispiness of her and her veil lend a ghostly quality to her forward rush. I can imagine the proceeding scene of her covering Duncan’s drugged attendants with blood as nothing but a spectral nightmare.
Blood stains on Macbeth create the appearance of a skeletal rib cage, as if he himself, or something within him, has begun to rot away. His guilt-ridden madness is impending.
Pictured: A bad time.
I’m also loving the composition of this piece, and how my eyes follow the action. Personally, my eyes go from Macbeth’s face to Lady Macbeth’s, down following her body to her bent knee, to Macbeth’s forward leg, to the daggers, and then back to Macbeth’s face again. This circular motion keeps the illusion of action constant.
This is my favorite piece by Henry Fuseli, even ahead of “The Nightmare”. It has such an intense atmosphere! I love it to pieces!
Share this:
