The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf

The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf by William Blake is a small but powerful wood engraving created in 1821. This piece belongs to a series of illustrations Blake produced for Dr. Robert John Thornton’s edition of the Roman poet Virgil’s Pastorals (or Bucolics). Though commissioned late in Blake's career, these images are widely regarded as a pinnacle of English Romantic printmaking, demonstrating the artist’s ability to imbue conventional narrative with mystical intensity.

The composition depicts the immediate drama of the shepherd protecting his flock, driving away the encroaching wolf. Blake employed a deeply etched style, maximizing the high contrast inherent in the wood engraving medium. The resultant stark black and white forms convey a primal energy and moral urgency, deviating significantly from the smoother, more conventional engravings popular in the United Kingdom during the period. Blake’s handling of the figures and the simplified, symbolic landscape influenced a later generation of British printmakers known as the Ancients.

These highly influential prints showcase Blake’s mastery of miniature scale and graphic reduction. The entire series captures the essence of the classical poetry while filtering it through the visionary lens of the Romantic movement. This particular wood engraving resides in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art and is studied internationally as a key example of the artist’s late production. Owing to its historical significance, high-quality images of this work are increasingly available through public domain resources.