Dante and Virgil at the Gates of Hell 

William Blake made this watercolor showing Dante and Virgil at the Gates of Hell. Blake was trained as an engraver, and he used those skills, combined with a restless imagination, to create his unique works on paper. Watercolors are made with pigments suspended in water-based solutions and are especially good at creating luminous effects. In this work, Blake uses diluted washes of color to create a scene that is ethereal and otherworldly. See how he builds layers of thin color to model the figures of Dante and Virgil, giving them a sense of depth. Blake was deeply interested in spiritual matters. He combined his artistic practice with his own personal mythology. He used his mastery of line and color to depict the human form, but the true subject of his work is the realm of the imagination. Blake used art not just to represent the world but to transcend it.