The Circle of Thieves: Buoso Donati Attacked by a Serpent 1827

Curator: This is William Blake's "The Circle of Thieves: Buoso Donati Attacked by a Serpent," currently residing at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels like a nightmare—all swirling lines and exposed vulnerability. The serpent dominates, injecting a raw terror. Curator: Blake, deeply engaged with Dante's Inferno, uses etching here to depict a scene of transformation and torment within the circle of thieves. Editor: And it's not just about the visual horror, is it? It's about social anxieties, the fear of losing yourself to greed, to the animalistic. Curator: Precisely. Blake critiques the societal structures that foster such moral decay, indicting the very systems that produce these thieves. Editor: It resonates even now, doesn’t it? The fear of corruption and the cost of unchecked ambition. Blake captures that timeless anxiety. Curator: Indeed, his art offers a lens through which to critically examine the human condition and the society we build around it. Editor: A powerful reminder that some anxieties, some moral battles, are perpetual. Blake holds up a mirror to them, unflinchingly.