Christ Disappearing at Emmaus

Henry Fuseli's Christ Disappearing at Emmaus from 1792 transforms the biblical narrative into a scene of Romantic intensity. The Swiss-born painter, who settled in London and became Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, was known for his visionary, sometimes nightmarish imagery drawn from Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays Michelangelesque muscular figures in extremis, supernatural and nightmare subjects, violent foreshortening, dark Gothic atmosphere, theatrical excess.

Fuseli's characteristic elongated figures and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow create a visionary atmosphere, the vanishing Christ rendered as an apparition dissolving into darkness with theatrical power.