Job's Comforters
1825
Medium
engraving on thick paper
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.1682
Art Historical Context
William Blake's *Job's Comforters (1825) is a poignant engraving from his monumental series *Illustrations of the Book Job*, a set of 22 plates that represent the artist's culminating vision of the biblical narrative. Created in the final year of Blake's life, this work captures the moment when Job's friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—arrive to console him amid his profound suffering, yet their gestures blend sympathy with subtle judgment. Blake, a pioneering figure of British Romanticism, infused the scene with his mystical intensity, portraying human frailty against cosmic forces. Rendered...
About the Artist
William Blake · 1757–1827
William Blake (1757–1827) stands as one of the most visionary and unconventional artists in British history, a poet-painter-printmaker whose mystical imagination and radical vision profoundly shaped the Romantic movement. Born in London's Soho district, Blake experienced visions from childhood—claiming to see angels in trees at age eight—and these spiritual encounters would guide his art throughou...