As a painter, Fuseli favoured the supernatural. He pitched everything on an ideal scale, believing a certain amount of exaggeration necessary in the higher branches of historical painting. In this theory he was confirmed by the study of Michelangelo's works and the marble statues of the Monte Cavallo,[1][4] which, when at Rome, he liked to contemplate in the evening, relieved against a murky sky or illuminated by lightning.[1]