Minneapolis Institute of Art

Nebuchadnezzar

William Blake

Date

1795

Medium

Color monotype in tempera, finished with pen, black ink and watercolor on cream paper

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon failed to heed the prophet Daniel’s warning to mend his sinful ways and show mercy to the poor. God stripped the king of his realm and drove him to “eat grass as oxen, . . . his body . . . wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws” (Daniel 4:33). Poet-painter William Blake’s luminous exploration of depravity is part of his extended investigation of the Sublime, the irrational realm of visceral, overwhelming emotion—the flip side of the Enlightenment—where God and nature tower over even the most powerful human being. England, Europe

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