Pity

Pity (c. 1795) is a colour print on paper, finished in ink and watercolor, by English artist and poet William Blake. Along with his other works of this period, it was influenced by the Bible, Milton, and Shakespeare. In this work, the inspiration came from Macbeth, especially the lines: Martin Butlin wrote that this colour print is one of the most inspired of all 'literal' illustrations of a text in the history of art. In fact, "pity and air", two words of the Shakespeare's verses, are also two motifs used by Blake in this picture: a female cherub leans down to snatch the baby from its mother. According to Blake biographer Alexander Gilchrist, the print "is on a tolerably large scale, a woman bending down to succour a man stretched out...