Nightmare
1846
Imagine waking up unable to move, with a heavy weight on your chest—that’s exactly what Ditlev Blunck captured here in 1846. This Danish Romantic painter visualizes the old folklore of the 'mare,' a goblin that sits on sleepers to cause bad dreams, but with a bizarre twist: the demon has the head of a rabbit. While Henry Fuseli famously painted a similar scene decades earlier, Blunck’s version feels cluttered with sheet music and jewelry, as if the nightmare interrupted a very normal evening. It’s a spooky yet strangely detailed look into the 19th-century subconscious.
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