123. 1825-6.—*Ninety-eight Designs from Dante's 'Divina Commedia.' [Linnell.] Water-colours, often decidedly unfinished, seldom quite complete: occasionally pencil drawings only, which are retained in this List, rather than the second, for convenience. See p. 375, Vol. I.
These are among the last works executed by Blake, and form on the whole, a very fine series, though not uniformly equal in merit seven only, all from the Hell, have been engraved. So individual an artist as Blake could not fail frequently to run counter to other people's conceptions of the poet but he certainly united in a singular degree the qualifications needed to translate Dante into form. Among the points necessary to be preserved, perhaps the one least fully expressed is the peculiar mediævalism of Dante, though Blake was by no means destitute of the feeling at times. Dante is represented, throughout, as a noble-looking, ideal young man, often almost feminine in person, clad in red. Virgil, not older than of early middle age, is in blue. (Besides the ninety-eight designs here enumerated, a slight inscribed diagram of the Hell-circles, and two other mere sketches, one of them of uncertain subject, may be considered as outlying members of the series.)
The Hell.—Sixty-eight Designs.
(a) Dante running from the Three Beasts.—Canto I.
Virgil comes floating through the air. The beasts are all sorts of colours; the leopard, for instance, being varied with lake and blue, and without spots. There is a wonderful effect of light beaming prismatic round the sun.
(6) Dante and Virgil penetrating the Forest.—Canto I. Very unfinished.
Fine in feeling.
(c) The Mission of Virgil.—Canto II. Unfinished.
Beatrice contemplates Dante, beset by the beasts. At the summit is a large group of the Deity in wrath, and a supernatural being, presumably the Genius of Florence. Two sidefigures below, seated amid flames, here blue, there red, are very fearful-looking. There are several other details carrying out the meaning of the whole subject.
(d) The Inscription over Hell-Gate.—Canto III. Unfinished.
Grand. Terrible, conical, upright flames, blue, red, and manytinted, burn amid the mounded circles of Hell.
(e) The Vestibule of Hell, and the Souls mustering to cross the Acheron.—Canto III.
The souls unworthy of either heaven or hell are tormented by the hornets and worms: above, in the dusky air, are their companion-angels, equally excluded. The heavy, murky Acheron is noble, and the whole design very fine upon examination.
(f) Charon and the Condemned Souls.—Canto III. Little beyond pencil.
Charon is very grotesque—almost ludicrous.
