Graphite, chalk, ink and watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
Illustrations to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39" aria-label="More by William Blake" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">William Blake</a>
Primaeval Giants Sunk in Soil
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the Art Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the Art Fund 1919
abstract concepts
adults
animals: fantastic
characters
Dante
Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’
figure
giant
Hell
Hell
Judaeo-Christian imagery
landscape
lightning
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
material world - half-buried figures
mythical, religious, fictional
people
places
rain
religion and belief
rocky
storm
symbols and personifications
Virgil
weather
<p>of the eighth circle of Hell. Blake depicts the thunder and lightning which draws Dante's</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2000</em></p>
paper unique graphite chalk ink watercolour
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
29 October 2024 – 30 September 2025
2025-09-30
30 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
2025-02-02
2024-10-30
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
1 September 2025 – 31 January 2026
2026-01-31
2025-09-01
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
1 March 2026 – 31 August 2026
2026-08-31
2026-03-01
External
2024-10-29
William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy: British Art & Imagination
Loan-out
The Primaeval Giants Sunk in the Soil
support: 372 × 527 mm
frame: 601 × 746 × 22 mm
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a>, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1919
<p>of the eighth circle of Hell. Blake depicts the thunder and lightning which draws Dante's </p>
Display caption
2000-10-11T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-primaeval-giants-sunk-in-the-soil-n03363" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03363</span></a> <b>The Primaeval Giants Sunk in the Soil</b> 1824–7
<br/></p>
<p>N 03363 / B 812 <i>60</i>
<br/>Pencil, black chalk, pen and watercolour 372×527 (14 5/8×20 3/4)
<br/>Inscribed ‘HELL Canto 31’ in ink over pencil b.r. and, on reverse in pencil, ‘N52 next at p25’ centre, ‘Hell Canto 29’ b.l. and ‘27’ t.r., the last turned through a right-angle
<br/>Watermarked ‘WELGAR 1796’
<br/>Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the National Art-Collections Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the National Art-Collections Fund, 1919
<br/>PROVENANCE As for <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-and-virgil-penetrating-the-forest-n03351" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03351</span></a>
<br/>EXHIBITED RA 1893 (17); Tate Gallery (41 xii), Manchester (48 xii), Nottingham (42 xviii) and Edinburgh (68) 1913–14; Paris, Antwerp, Zurich and Tate Gallery 1947 (29 iii)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.220 no.101g<sup>2</sup>, and 1880, p.232 no.123g<sup>2</sup>; Damon 1924, p.219; Roc 1953, pp.112–20 no.60, repr.; Klonsky 1977, p.120, repr.; Klonsky 1980, pp.17, 151, pl.63; Butlin 1981, pp.574–5 no.812 <i>60</i>; Gizzi 1983, p.141 repr.
<br/></p>
<p>This is an illustration to <i>Inferno</i> XXXI, 19–45: Dante and Virgil, leaving the last trench of the eighth circle, come across the primaeval giants set waist deep in the bank. For Blake they symbolise the five senses bogged down in materialism. Blake devoted three futher designs to the giants, ‘The Complaint of the Giant Nimrod’ in the Fogg Art Museum, and ‘Ephialtes and Two other Titans’ and ‘Antaeus Setting Down Dante and Virgil in the Last Circle of Hell’, both in the National Gallery of Victoria (Butlin 1981, nos.812 <i>61, 62</i> and <i>63</i>; all repr. Roe 1953 pls.61, 62 and 63, Klonsky 1980, pls.64, 65 and 66, and Gizzi 1983, pp.142, 143 and 144, the last two also in colour pp.65–66); Dante does not name the other two giants.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-07-16T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstract concepts adults animals: fantastic characters Dante Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’ figure giant Hell Hell Judaeo-Christian imagery landscape lightning literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) material world - half-buried figures mythical, religious, fictional people places rain religion and belief rocky storm symbols and personifications Virgil weather