William Blake's Divine Comedy Illustrations: 102 Full-Color Plates (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) Paperback – September 19, 2008

This book of 102 plates is a grand collection and shows the work of Blake in various stages of completion from rough sketches, to watercolor wash, to etching, to full multi-colored complete watercolors, and to full multi-colored, multi-plate prints. Thus you see impressions and ideas in early stages of execution all the way to fully realized expressive works. For the most part, the works are magnificent. Blake was a fine draftsman and the graphic illustrative qualities of his work are strong. He has somewhat of an academic style in regard to drawing or painting the human body with the male, often nude, drawn with flowing manneristic precision and revealing a hyper-muscular approach to the male body. In other words, his male figures are often nude muscular fellows with flowing expressive movement. Some of the less developed works are exquisite in their early stages, such as the illustration of Virgil, at the request of Beatrice, assisting Dante in his quest for divine wisdom, an image of two figures cradled, protected, by huge flowing trees. Blake loves monsters and he really gets the opportunity to let his imagination go with the many demons and monsters and mythological characters that Virgil and Dante encounter. Whereas Blake can create fragile, pastel, impressions he can also create dark contrasting areas of great dynamism. An image of the lustful dead being swept across the dark indigo night sky is a fantastic image. Any artist would be content to have 10 masterpieces in their artistic career. Blake had hundreds of successful master works. The unfinished works feel very contemporary, such as a watercolor in mauve and yellow ochre where Dante asks Virgil to explain the influence of Fortune on humans. Blake creates an alternate reality for his world of hell, purgatory, and heaven are truly other realities than the lived in reality of life on earth. Blake's drawn diagram of the nine circles of hell puts most contemporary drawings to shame with its subtlety and sketchy graphic qualities. In another watercolor, Dante and Virgil approach the Minotaur and the surface colors are exquisite and the Minotaur has all the power of a Picasso monster. Dante mixes the gods of antiquity into hell. His completed watercolor and ink drawing of Capaneus, unrepentant and defiant, who was struck down by the lightning bolts of Zeus, shows the power of the finished pieces. The finished work of Neptune's son Anteus is absolutely beautiful. Overall the collection is a grand achievement and the images are outstanding. Dante was very concerned about the politics of the Papacy and Tuscany but Blake's images rises above the local to the universal.

I was a copy of Dante's Divine Comedy as a birthday present for a friend who mentioned they would like to have one with the William Blake illustrations. It's hard to the actual Divine Comedy with these illustrations, but then I stumbled upon this. It's nice because you have all of the illustrations (even ones unfinished or not in the original edition of the book with his illustrations). Since my friend already had a copy, I decided to buy this! He loved it and I'm glad I bought it. The quality of the pictures is excellent. A great coffee table book for sure!

The point to make is not that there's anything bad to say about this collection of William Blake's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy; rather it's that the quality of this book is nowhere near what it should be.- It's softcover, it should be clothbound hardcover.- The quality of the paper and binding could be much better.- There should be contextual quotations as well as explanations of the plates.- The graphic design, beginning with the cover, is flat and unimaginative.The Folio Society Edition of Dante's work fetches hundreds of dollars, so that level would be too much to expect. But something of the same quality as what Houghton Mifflin Harcourt produced for Randall Munroe's "Thing Explainer" would have been perfect.We have to remember it's a Dover edition, they publish many books other publishers would forget to consider and there are good things about this edition.+ Blake's illustrations are fascinating and mesmerizing.+ I can't argue with the price.+ I'm happy it's available at all!Vincent Poirier, Québec City

This is a beautiful book that really lets you see Blake's creative process: the illustrations range from loose sketches and incomplete paintings, to articulately finished works of art. This book does NOT contain the text of the Divine Comedy, but each plate lists the line numbers it illustrates so one can easily use it while reading Dante's masterpiece. I don't know what the customer who wrote in Italian's complaint is (since I don't understand Italian), but I give this book a top recommendation to all lovers of Blake's art.

These are first of all fascinating illustrations from one of the great poets and artists of the last three centuries or so. The reproductions are finely done, and this is a real bargain at the price. A good intro to Blake's work, but for beginners I would recommend a good facsimile of Songs of Innocence and Experience.

Good quality color reproductions. William Blake did not complete all the paintings. Some are just sketches. But the completed paintings are fantastic. His style is other worldly.

This is a book with beautiful illustrations and I was glad that I ordered it for my son on Christmas. It came well in time, too.

Yes, you get what you pay for here. I have to wonder why so many sketches were included. Were they deemed more expressive than a completed counterpart? All work here seems clearer than the facsimile versions of Urizen and the Marriage of Heaven and Hell purchased at the same time.