The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve

The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve from 1826 at the National Gallery is one of Blake's final works, created during the extraordinarily productive last years of his life when he was simultaneously completing his Dante illustrations and working on other visionary compositions. The subject of the first murder — Cain's killing of Abel — resonated with Blake's theology of innocence corrupted by experience and his understanding of violence as a consequence of the fall from primal unity. Blake's highly personal technique — combining watercolor, tempera, and sometimes relief etching — was inseparable from his visionary content; he worked outside the academic tradition, selling relatively little in his lifetime while creating some of the most original art produced in Britain. The discovery scene is rendered with the intense linearity of Blake's mature style, Adam and Eve confronting the body of their murdered son with the wordless grief that Blake conveys through posture and gesture rather than facial expression. The National Gallery acquired this work as part of its commitment to representing the full range of British Romantic art, including the most radical and least conventional practitioners.

The figures are rendered with the intense linearity of Blake's mature style, the dramatic discovery scene composed with the visionary clarity that characterizes his later works.