Dark Visions

Some people go bungee jumping or cave exploring for fun, but most of us would rather watch a scary movie or listen to a ghost story when we need a little fright in our lives. 

It wasn’t much different in the 1700s and the 1800s. Artists reveled in the Sublime, the flip side of the Age of Enlightenment, in which Romantics opened themselves to the sensation of forces beyond human comprehension and control. They gave their audiences terrifying images—sometimes for giggles, sometimes for soulful contemplation.

 In this exhibition, artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francisco Goya, and William Blake stir the cauldron with images so peculiar that it was—and still is—hard to know what to make of them.

Credit: Overview from museum website