Satan Smiting Job with Boils
1825
Medium
engraving on thick paper
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.1676
Art Historical Context
William Blake's *Satan Smiting Job with Boils* (1825) is a powerful engraving from his monumental series *Illustrations of the Book of Job*, one of the artist's final and most ambitious projects. Depicting a pivotal moment from the biblical Book of Job, it shows the afflicted patriarch writhing in agony as Satan hurls boils upon him, symbolizing profound human suffering and spiritual trial. Blake, a visionary poet and artist of the Romantic era, drew deeply from the King James Bible, infusing the scene with his mystical worldview where divine wrath and human endurance collide. Crafted as a re...
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...