The schismatics and sowers of discord- Mahomet

The Schismatics and Sowers of Discord: Mohammed from 1824 at the National Gallery of Victoria illustrates Dante's Inferno, Canto XXVIII, depicting the punishment of those who divided communities. Blake's Dante watercolors were commissioned by John Linnell and occupied the final years of Blake's life. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays linear, flame-like figures combining Michelangelesque anatomy with Gothic energy, vivid color in his illuminated books, personal mythological imagery of Albion, Los, Urizen, and the Eternals.

The gruesome punishment is rendered with Blake's characteristic linear precision, the anatomical detail and intense expression conveying the horror of Dante's imagined justice.