Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent

Henry Fuseli painted Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent around 1790, depicting the Norse mythological confrontation between the thunder god and the world-encircling serpent Jörmungandr — a subject that reflected the period's growing interest in Norse mythology as an alternative to the exhausted classical tradition. Fuseli's Thor is characteristically Fuselian: the figure impossibly muscular, the pose extravagantly distorted, the serpent rendered with maximum visual horror. His engagement with Norse mythology was part of a broader Romantic search for a northern cultural mythology equivalent to the Greek and Roman tradition, and his Thor images were among the first serious artistic engagements with the Norse pantheon in British art.

Fuseli depicts Thor with exaggerated musculature and superhuman energy, battling the sea serpent amid churning waves. The painting's violent dynamism and distorted anatomy exemplify Fuseli's distinctive style, which pushes Neoclassical form to Romantic extremes.