Picturing Paradise

Since its first illustrated edition rolled off the press in 1688, Paradise Lost has fired the imaginations of artists. Generations of painters, draughtsmen, and printmakers have tried to create a visual equivalent to Milton’s poetry. Between the late seventeenth and early twentieth centuries a flurry of illustrated editions appeared, whose plates very visibly reflected changing artistic tastes. Seventeenth-century artists drew episodes from Paradise Lost with an eye for the emblematic. But by the eighteenth century, painters such as John Martin began to look to Milton’s epic as a storehouse of the Sublime—the rolling vistas of Eden, or the flaming, subterranean crags of Hell.

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Michael Burgesse after John Baptist de Medina [?], illustration to Book I, engraving. Paradise lost. A poem in twelve books... The fifth edition, adorn’d with sculptures (London: Jacob Tonson, [1692]).

Michael Burgesse after John Baptist de Medina [?], illustration to Book XII, engraving. Paradise lost. A poem in twelve books...The sixth edition with sculptures; to which is added, explanatory notes upon each book, and a table to the poem, never before printed. (London: Jacob Tonson, [1695]).

Francesco Zucchi after Giambattista Tiepolo, illustration to Book X, engraving. Paolo Rolli (1687–1765), translator Il paradiso perduto: poema inglese di Giovanni Milton ... (Verona: Giannalberto Tumermani, 1742).

Simon François Ravenet after Francis Hayman, illustration to Book I, engraving. Paradise Lost: a poem in twelve books ... Third edition, with notes of various authors, by Thomas Newton, D.D., vol. 1 (London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1754).

Charles Grignion after Francis Hayman, illustration to Book VI, engraving. Paradise Lost: a poem in twelve books ... a new edition, with notes of various authors, by Thomas Newton, D.D., vol. 1 (London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1749).

Charles Grignion after Francis Hayman, illustration to Book IX, engraving. Paradise Lost: a poem in twelve books ... a new edition, with notes of various authors, by Thomas Newton, D.D., vol. 2 (London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1749).

Simon François Ravenet after Francis Hayman, illustration to Book XII, engraving.Paradise Lost: a poem in twelve books ... Third edition, with notes of various authors, by Thomas Newton, D.D., vol. 1 (London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1754).

J.P. Simon after Richard Westall (1765-1836), illustration to Book I.375, stipple engraving. The Poetical Works of John Milton, vol. 1 (London: John and Josiah Boydell and George Nicoll, 1794).

John Martin (1789-1854), ‘The Approach of the Angel Raphael’, illustration to Book V.308, mezzotint. The Paradise Lost of Milton, with illustrations by John Martin (London: Henry Washbourne, 1866).

John Martin (1789-1854), ‘Satan arousing the Fallen Angels’, illustration to Book I.314, mezzotint. The Paradise Lost of Milton, with illustrations by John Martin (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1866).

Milton’s Paradise Lost. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. Edited with Notes and a Life of Milton by Robert Vaughan. (New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., n.d. [c.1884]).

Gustave Doré (1832-1883), 'Nine days they fell', illustration to Book VI.871, engraving. Milton’s Paradise Lost, illustrated by Gustave Doré, edited with Notes and a Life of Milton by Robert Vaughan. (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1882).

William Strang (1859-1921), ‘Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise’, illustration to Book XII, etching. Paradise Lost. A series of twelve illustrations etched by William Strang. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1896).

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