Dante_Purgatory_I__Dante-Virgil-Cato

Dante, Virgil, and Cato from Purgatory I, painted in 1827, illustrates the opening of Dante's second cantica when the poets emerge from Hell and encounter Cato, guardian of Purgatory. Blake's Dante illustrations occupied the final years of his life. 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 t

The three figures are rendered with Blake's characteristic linear clarity, the transition from infernal darkness to purgatorial light conveyed through his luminous watercolor technique.