The Savoy . and Virgil climbing among the roughrocks at the foot of the Purgatorial mountain, and the night sea and sparevegetation in the drawing of the sleep of Virgil, Dante and Statius near toits summit, are symbols of divine acceptance, and foreshadow the land-scapes of his disciples Calvert, Palmer, and Linnell, famous interpreters ofpeace. The faint unfinished figures in the globe of light in the drawing ofthe sleepers are the Leah and Rachel of Dantes dream, the active andthe contemplative life of the spirit, the one gathering flowers, the othergazing at her face in the glass. It is cu
The Savoy . and Virgil climbing among the roughrocks at the foot of the Purgatorial mountain, and the night sea and sparevegetation in the drawing of the sleep of Virgil, Dante and Statius near toits summit, are symbols of divine acceptance, and foreshadow the land-scapes of his disciples Calvert, Palmer, and Linnell, famous interpreters ofpeace. The faint unfinished figures in the globe of light in the drawing ofthe sleepers are the Leah and Rachel of Dantes dream, the active andthe contemplative life of the spirit, the one gathering flowers, the othergazing at her face in the glass. It is curious that Blake has made noattempt, in these drawings, to make Dante resemble any of his portraits,especially as he had, years before, painted Dante in a series of por-traits of poets, of which many certainly tried to be accurate portraits. Ihave not yet seen this picture, but if it has Dantes face, it will convinceme that he intended to draw, in the present case, the soul rather than the • ~v ? -f. BLAKES ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DIVINE COMEDY 41 body of Dante, and read The Divine Comedy as a vision seen not in thebody but out of the body. Both the figures of Dante and Virgil have theslightly feminine look which he gave to representations of the soul. W. B. Yeats.
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, booksubjectart, booksubjectliteraturemodern
