Blake, William

William Blake (1807)

William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker. Though largely unrecognised during his lifetime, today Blake's work is almost universally considered that of a genius. According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic opus, his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the [English] language". Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, in particular his engravings: "[Blake] is far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced" [1].

However, viewing Blake's accomplishments in either poetry or in the visual arts separately is to do him a disservice; Blake himself saw these two disciplines as being cohorts in a unified spiritual endeavour, and they are inseparable in a proper appreciation of his work.

Early life

Childhood and Family

Blake was born at 28a Broad Street, Golden Square, London into a middle-class family. He was one of four children (an older brother died in infancy). His father was a hosier. They are believed to have belonged to a radical religious sect called Dissenters; however, the exact identity of the sect is a mystery. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a crucial source of inspiration throughout his life.

From a young age Blake saw visions. The earliest certain instance was when he was at the age of about eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, when he saw a tree filled with angels "bespangling every bough like stars." According to Blake's Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home and reported this vision, and only escaped a thrashing from his father by the intervention of his mother. Though all the evidence suggests that Blake's parents were supportive and of a broadly liberal bent, his mother seems to have been especially supportive; several of Blake's early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber.

On another occasion, Blake beheld the haymakers at work, and saw angelic figures walking among them. It is possible that other visions occurred before these incidents: in later life, Blake's wife Catherine would recall to him the time he beheld God's head "put to the window". The vision, Catherine reminded her husband, "set you ascreaming" (543, Blake Record, ed. Bentley Jr., Oxford, 1969).

Blake began engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father (a further indication of the support they lent their son), a practice that was then preferred to real-life drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms, through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Martin Hemskerck and Albert Dürer(Blake Record, 422). His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Johnson and Edmund Spenser. If nothing else, we can attest of young Blake a rare precocity.

Apprenticeship to Basire

On the 4th August, 1772, Blake became apprenticed to an engraver, James Basire of Great Queen Street, for the term of seven years. At the end of this period, at the age of twenty-one, he was to become a professional engraver.

Basire was, apparently, a kind master to Blake: there is no record of any serious disagreement between the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship. However, Akroyd's biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries - and then cross it out (43, Blake, Peter Akroyd, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995). This aside, Basire's style of engraving was unfortunately of a kind held to be old-fashioned at the time, and Blake's instruction in this outmoded form may have had a detrimental effect on his struggles to acquire work or even recognition in later life.

After two years Basire sent him to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (it is possible that this task was set in order to break up a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice). It was Blake's experiences in Westminster Abbey in particular that first informed his artistic ideas & style. It must be remembered that the Abbey was a different environment entirely from its more sombre modern aspect: it was festooned with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Akroyd notes that "the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour" (44, Blake, Akroyd). During the many long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the cathedral,he was occasionally interrupted by the boys of Westminster School, one of whom "tormented" Blake so much one afternoon that he knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, "upon which he fell with terrific Violence." Another, less violent tale may be related; Blake beheld more visions in the Abbey, of a great procession of monks and priests, while he heard "the chant of plain-song and chorale".

Illustration: The archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in the illuminated books of William Blake. Here, Blake depicts an almighty creator stooped in prayer contemplating the world he has forged. The Song of Los is the third in a series of illuminated books, hand painted by Blake and his wife, known as the "Continental Prophecies", considered by critics to contain some of Blake's most powerful imagery.

The Royal Academy

In 1779, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. The terms of his study required him to make no payment; he was, however, required to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens, championed by the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds. Over time, Blake came to detest Reynold's attitude to art, especially his pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty". During an address given by Reynolds in which he maintained that the tendency to abstraction is "the great glory of the human mind", Blake reportedly responded "to generalise is to be an idiot to particularize is alone the distinction of merit". Blake also disliked Reynolds apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynold's fashionable oil painting, Blake preferred the Classical exactness of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael.

In July, 1780, Blake was walking towards Basire's shop in Great Queen Street when he was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison in London. The mob were wearing blue cockades (ribbons) on their caps, to symbolise solidarity with the insurrection in the American colonies. They attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, before setting the building ablaze. The rioters than clambered onto the roof of the prison and tore away at it, releasing the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the very front rank of the mob during this attack, though it is unlikely that he was forced into attendance. More likely, according to Akroyd, he accompanied the crowd impulsively.

These riots were in response to a parliamentary Bill designed to advance Roman Catholicism. This disturbance, later known as the Gordon riots after Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant Association incited the riots, provoked a flurry of paranoid legislation from the government of George III, as well as the creation of the first police force.

Marriage

In 1782 Blake met John Flaxman, who was to become his patron. In the same year he met Catherine Boucher. At the time, Blake was recovering from an unhappy relationship which had ended with a refusal of his marriage proposal. Telling Catherine and her parents the story, she expressed her sympathy, whereupon Blake asked her 'Do you pity me?' To Catherine's affirmative response he himself responded 'Then I love you.' Blake married Catherine, who was five years his junior, on 18th August 1782. Catherine, an illiterate, signed her wedding contract with an 'X'. Later on Blake, as well as teaching Catherine to read and write, trained her as an engraver; throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aide to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits following his numerous misfortunes. Their marriage, though unblessed by children, remained close and loving throughout the remainder of Blake's life.

At this time, George Cumberland, one of the founders of the National Gallery, became an admirer of Blake's work. Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was also published, circa 1783. After his father's death, William and brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784 and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson. At Johnson's house he met some of the leading intellectual dissidents of the time in England, including Joseph Priestley, scientist; Richard Price, philosopher; John Henry Fuseli, painter whom he became friends with; Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist; and Thomas Paine, American revolutionary. Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin, Blake had great hopes for the American and French revolution and wore a red liberty cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in the French revolution.

Mary Wollstonecraft became a close friend, and Blake illustrated her Original Stories from Real Life (1788). They shared similar views on sexual equality and the institution of marriage. In the Visions of the Daughters of Albion in 1793 Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfillment. In 1788, at the age of thirty-one, Blake began to experiment with relief etching, which was the method used to produce most of his books of poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid in order to dissolve away the untreated copper and leave the design standing. The pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-colored in water colors and stitched together to make up a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for four of his works: the Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem.

Later life and career

Blake's A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows

Blake's marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. There were early problems, however, such as Catherine's illiteracy and the couple's failure to produce children. At one point, in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society, Blake suggested bringing in a concubine. Catherine was distressed at the idea, and he dropped it. Later in his life Blake sold a great number of works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts, a patron who saw Blake more as a friend in need than an artist. About 1800 Blake moved to a cottage at Felpham in Sussex (now West Sussex) to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley, a mediocre poet. It was in this cottage that Blake wrote Milton: a Poem (which was published later between 1805 and 1808).

Blake's Newton as a divine geometer (1795)

Blake abhorred slavery and believed in racial and sexual equality. Several of his poems and paintings express a notion of universal humanity: "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)". He retained an active interest in social and political events for all his life, but was often forced to resort to cloaking social idealism and political statements in protestant mystical allegory. Blake rejected all forms of imposed authority; indeed, he was charged with assault and uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King in 1803 but was cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. Blake's views on what he saw as oppression and restriction of rightful freedom extended to the Church. Blake was himself a follower of Unitarian philosophy, and he is also said to have been the Chosen Chief of the Ancient Druid Order from 1799 to 1827. His spiritual beliefs are evidenced in Songs of Experience (in 1794), in which Blake showed his own distinction between the Old Testament God, whose restrictions he rejected, and the New Testament God (Jesus Christ), whom he saw as a positive influence.

Blake returned to London in 1802 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (1804-1820). He was introduced by George Cumberland to a young artist named John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer, who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the Shoreham Ancients. This group shared Blake's rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. At the age of sixty-five Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job. These works were later admired by John Ruskin, who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt. William Blake died in 1827 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields, London. In recent years, a proper memorial was erected for him and his wife. Perhaps his life is summed up by his statement that "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself." Blake is also recognized as a Saint in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honor in Australia in 1949.

Bibliography

Illuminated Books

• c.1788: All Religions are One
  • There is No Natural Religion
• 1789: Songs of Innocence
  • The Book of Thel
• 1790-1793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• 1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion
  • America: a Prophecy
• 1794: Europe: a Prophecy
  • The First Book of Urizen
  • Songs of Experience (The sequel to Songs of Innocence, with many of its poems intended as counterpoints from the Fallen world to those in the first book, this was Blake's only Illuminated book to achieve even limited success in his lifetime. It includes the poems The Tyger and The Sick Rose)
• 1795: The Book of Los
  • The Song of Los
  • The Book of Ahania
• c.1804-c.1811: Milton: a Poem
• 1804-1820: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion

Non-Illuminated Material

• Never seek to tell thy love
• Tiriel (circa 1789)

Illustrated by Blake

• 1788: Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life
• 1797: Edward Young, Night Thoughts
• 1805-1808: Robert Blair, The Grave
• 1808: John Milton, Paradise Lost
• 1819-1820: John Varley, Visionary Heads
• 1821: R.J. Thornton, Virgil
• 1823-1826: The Book of Job
• 1825-1827: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Blake died in 1827 with these watercolours still unfinished)

On Blake

• Jacob Bronowski (1972). William Blake and the Age of Revolution. Routledge and K. Paul. ISBN 0-710-07277-5 (hardcover) ISBN 0-710-07278-3 (pbk.)
• Jacob Bronowski (1967). William Blake, 1757-1827; a man without a mask. Haskell House Publishers.
• S. Foster Damon (1979). A Blake Dictionary. Shambhala. ISBN 0-394-73688-5.
• Northrop Frye (1947). Fearful Symmetry. Princeton Univ Press. ISBN 0-691-06165-3.
• Peter Ackroyd (1995). Blake. Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-278-4.
• E.P. Thompson (1993). Witness against the Beast. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22515-9.
• Victor N. Paananen (1996). William Blake. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7053-4.
• George Anthony Rosso Jr. (1993). Blake's Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8387-5240-3.
• G.E. Bentley Jr. (2001). The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08939-2.
• David V. Erdman (1977). Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-486-26719-9.
• James King (1991). William Blake: His Life. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-07572-3.
• W.J.T. Mitchell (1978). Blake's Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-691-01402-7.
• Peter Marshall (1988). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist ISBN 090038477
• Dr. Malkin, A Father's Memories of his Child, (1806)
• Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake, (second edition, London, 1880)
• Swinburne, William Blake: A Critical Essay, (London, 1868)
• W. M. Rosetti (editor), Poetical Works of William Blake, (London, 1874)
• Basil de Sélincourt, William Blake, (London, 1909)
• A. G. B. Russell, Engravings of William Blake, (1912)
• W. B. Yeats, Ideas of Good and Evil, (1903), contains essays.
• Joseph Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book, (Princeton UP, 1993). ISBN 069106962X.

Inspired by Blake

• The Fugs put Ah, Sunflower and other Blake poems to music. Also used a Blake painting as part of the cover to the bootleg record, Virgin Fugs.
• Tyger, an album by electronic music artists Tangerine Dream, features a number of William Blake poems set to music.
• Tiger (ca. 1928), a tone-cluster piano piece by Henry Cowell
• Red Dragon, a novel by Thomas Harris, whose title refers to Blake's painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun, the original of which is eaten by the novel's antihero.
• The 1981 film The Evil Dead, directed by Sam Raimi, also contains Blake's painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun, this time as a page in the Book of the Dead.
• Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, an album by the Norwegian musical group Ulver from 1998, utilizes the complete text of the Blake poem lyrically.
• The Songs of Innocence and Experience have been set to music by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, and more recently by William Bolcom. Albums using them as lyrics include Greg Brown's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" and Jah Wobble's "The Inspiration of William Blake". Allen Ginsberg also released an album of Blake songs.
• A series of poems and texts chosen by Peter Pears from Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, Auguries of Innocence, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was made into the song cycle, Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, by Benjamin Britten in 1965.
• The Sick Rose from Songs of Experience is one of the poems by several authors set to music by Benjamin Britten in Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.
• Spring, by Finn Coren
• The World of Tiers books by Philip José Farmer
• Quotations from Blake form the climax of Jerry Springer - The Opera
• Dead Man, a film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, features a character named William Blake and includes many references to Blake's work.
• Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!, a novel by Kenzaburo Oe
• Love's Secret Domain, an electronic album by Coil, quotes Blake numerous times in the lyrics. The title track is also a reinterpretation of The Sick Rose. Various other albums by Coil carry many Blake references and allusions.
• The book The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley draws its title from a line in Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The title of Huxley's book, in turn, inspired the naming of the rock band The Doors who turned Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"(106-108) into their "End of the Night".
• The Amber Spyglass, the third book from the collection His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, has several quotations from Blake's works.
• The Chemical Wedding album by Bruce Dickinson.
• Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, album by David Axelrod
• The character Blake Williams in the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson is named after William Blake.
• William Blake is the secondary identity of the character Taleswapper in the Tales of Alvin Maker fantasy book series by Orson Scott Card.
• Grendel, by John Gardner, quotes a verse from Blake's "The Mental Traveller" before the book begins. It also has many references to Blake throughout the novel.
• Peter Doherty, formerly of The Libertines and now of Babyshambles wrote the poem (song) Albion and the album Down In Albion. Which features Blakes influence.
• William Blake also is the name of the main protagonist in Jim Jarmusch's Movie "Dead Man", where Blake's "tongue will be the gun" and where the poetry of the author Blake plays a crucial role in understanding the movie's logic.

References

• This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
• William Blake: Visionary Anarchist Peter Marshall (1988) ISBN 090038477

See also

• Blaketashi Darwishes

External links

• William Blake - Cybersongs of Innocence
• The William Blake Archive
• http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/blake/ (archive of an exhibit of his work at the National Gallery of Victoria)
• http://www.elp.it/bygothic/Gallery/Blake/index.html - Gallery of Paintings
• Works by William Blake at Project Gutenberg
• Blake Digital Text Project
• Vast Collection of Poems and Quotes by Blake
• Introduction to The Drawings and Engravings of William Blake, by Laurence Binyon
• Essay on Blake’s Auguries of Innocence
• Blue Neon Alley - Directory and Poems
• Poetry Archive: 170 poems of William Blake
• Free audiobook (The Voice of the Ancient Bard) from LibriVox
• A sixth form English perspective at-http://www.whscms.org.uk/index.php?category_id=242

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