The Soul Hovering Over the Body [from Marriage of Heaven and Hell," plate 14]
c. 1796
![The Soul Hovering Over the Body [from Marriage of Heaven and Hell," plate 14] by William Blake](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/nga/thumb/the-soul-hovering-over-the-body-from-marriage-of-nga-11491.webp)
Medium
relief etching, color-printed
Dimensions
image: 4.2 × 10.1 cm (1 5/8 × 4 in.) sheet: 12.5 × 18.8 cm (4 15/16 × 7 3/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.8989
Art Historical Context
William Blake's *The Soul Hovering Over Body*, plate 14 from his visionary illuminated book *The Marriage Heaven and Hell* (c. 1796), captures the artist's profound mystical imagination. This tiny relief etching, color-printed and measuring just 4.2 × 10.1 cm, depicts a ethereal soul ascending above a recumbent form, evoking themes of transcendence, the afterlife, and the union of body and spirit. Blake, a Romantic poet and printmaker (1757–1827), crafted this as part of a revolutionary text that provocatively merges prose, poetry, and imagery to challenge Enlightenment rationalism, proclaimin...
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...