The Canterbury Pilgrims

The Canterbury Pilgrims by William Blake is a large-scale engraving completed in 1810. The work serves as Blake’s ambitious visual interpretation of the famous procession described in Geoffrey Chaucer’s medieval masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales. The piece captures the assemblage of pilgrims readying for their journey, depicting them organized in a long, horizontal line that underscores the narrative momentum of the tale.

The execution of this print was a significant undertaking for Blake, who viewed engraving as the preeminent vehicle for disseminating visionary art. Produced during the British Romantic period, spanning 1801 to 1825, the composition distinguishes itself by presenting the characters with highly idealized, powerful outlines, an aesthetic choice Blake believed captured the spiritual essence of the poem more effectively than contemporary interpretations. Blake created this engraving in direct competition with a popular painted version by Thomas Stothard, arguing that his own design faithfully rendered the symbolic and moral distinctiveness of Chaucer’s thirty-one essential character types, including the Wife of Bath, the Knight, and the Miller.

Blake meticulously arranged the figures, granting each a unique posture and identifying attribute drawn directly from the text. This emphasis on outline and allegorical form is characteristic of his work within the graphic arts tradition. As a seminal example of British printmaking from the early 19th century, this depiction of The Canterbury Pilgrims demonstrates the artist's dedication to both literary subjects and the technical demands of the medium. This essential work resides in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art. Due to its historical significance and classification as an older work, the image is often found within public domain collections, ensuring its accessibility for scholarship and the production of high-quality prints worldwide.