1821
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf is a 1821 by William Blake, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two shepherds in a field, one holding a staff, the other pointing at a wolf slinking away between trees. Blake made these as wood engravings—his only ones. The lines are sharp, almost like ink on paper, but carved into wood. He was illustrating a Latin schoolbook, yet he filled the scene with his own wild, dreamy energy. Look up *chiaroscuro* to see how other artists used light and shadow like Blake did here.
William Blake conceived and engraved 17 designs for Dr. Robert John Thornton’s The Pastorals of Virgil , a popular schoolbook used in teaching Latin. The publication included translations of poems by ancient Roman author Virgil that focus on a rural setting as both a subject matter and as the background for discussions of various issues, from love to politics. Blake’s illustrations reveal his emphasis on the natural world. As his only wood engravings, they also show how the process entails cutting away from the woodblock to create lighter sections, in essence working in white over a black…
Read the full account in the museum source.
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker.
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