Graphite 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>
Virgil Girding Dantes Brow with a Rush
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
actions: postures and motions
adults
characters
cloud
Dante
Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Purgatorio’
kneeling
landscape
literary
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
man
people
plants and flowers
poet
rocky
rush
sea
seascapes and coasts
sunrise
times of the day
Virgil
weather
work and occupations
<p>Here, Blake shows a scene from Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ (the second part in <span>The Divine Comedy</span>). Virgil is instructed by Cato – the guardian of the entrance to Purgatory – to bathe Dante’s face and wrap his forehead with a rush. As Virgil does this, the sun rises enough to reveal the way up the Mountain of Purgatory. In Blake’s work, sun imagery is often ambiguous. Blake associated the spiritual sun with divinity and the imagination, and the actual, material sun with the mundane world of the five senses. Purgatory is poised between these states.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
paper unique graphite watercolour
17 April 2023 – 12 May 2024
2024-05-12
17 April 2023 – 12 May 2024
2024-05-12
2023-04-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-04-17
Blake
Collection based display
Virgil Girding Dante’s Brow with a Rush
support: 527 × 371 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
<div class="text">
<p>Here, Blake shows a scene from Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ (the second part in <i>The Divine Comedy</i>). Virgil is instructed by Cato – the guardian of the entrance to Purgatory – to bathe Dante’s face and wrap his forehead with a rush. As Virgil does this, the sun rises enough to reveal the way up the Mountain of Purgatory. In Blake’s work, sun imagery is often ambiguous. Blake associated the spiritual sun with divinity and the imagination, and the actual, material sun with the mundane world of the five senses. Purgatory is poised between these states. </p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-26T00:00:00
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-virgil-girding-dantes-brow-with-a-rush-n03365" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03365</span></a> <b>Virgil Girding Dante's Brow with a Rush</b> 1824–7
<br/></p>
<p>N 03365 / B 812 <i>70</i>
<br/>Pencil and watercolour 527×371 (20 3/4×14 5/8)
<br/>Inscribed ‘P-g Canto I’ in ink b.l. and, on reverse in pencil, ‘61’ t.l. and ‘Pg Canto 2’ b.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 Tate Gallery (41 xv), Manchester (48 xv), Nottingham (42 i) and Ediburgh (51) 1913–14
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.221 no.102a, and 1880, p.232 no.124a; Roe 1953, pp.137–8 no.70, repr.; Klonsky 1980, p.154, colour pl.73; Butlin 1981, p.578 no.812 <i>70</i>; Gizzi 1983, p.151 repr.
<br/></p>
<p>This is an illustration to <i>Purgatorio</i> 1, 130–6. It was formerly catalogued as ‘Dante and Virgil again Beholding the Sun as they Issue from Hell’ but in fact the events shown in this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> occur after the poets' meeting with Cato, the subject of ‘Dante, Virgil and Cato’, now in the Fogg Art Museum (Butlin 1981, no.812 <i>71</i>, repr. Roe 1953, pl.71, Klonsky 1981, pl.74 and Gizzi 1983, p.152). In the Tate watercolour Cato has told Virgil to bathe Dante's face and to gird his brow with one of the rushes growing by the shore, during which time the sun will have risen enough to show them their route up the Mountain of Purgatory.
<br/>
<br/>For Blake the rising sun may well have symbolised the Poetic Imagination, plyaing its part as the link between Fallen Man, in Hell, and Paradise, or as Blake would term it, Eden.</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
2004-10-05T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults characters cloud Dante Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Purgatorio’ kneeling landscape literary literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man people plants and flowers poet rocky rush sea seascapes and coasts sunrise times of the day Virgil weather work and occupations