1650
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Descent into Limbo is a 1650 ink by French 17th Century, a Baroque work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This print shows a chaotic crowd of people below a group of winged figures. The lower half is packed with struggling bodies, some reaching up, others tangled together. Above them, angels float in the sky, pointing upward toward a bearded man with outstretched arms. The dark lines and shading create a sense of movement and drama. The artist used a lot of small lines to build up shadows and texture. Want to know more? Look up engraving.
Seventeenth-century French printmakers turned ink into story. Their tools were burin and acid, paper their stage. Look at the Beggar Woman with Rosary (1622), etched on laid paper, her hands folded around faith, or The…
See the richer artist page
