Back to BLAKE .... WILLIAM BLAKE
I think I now know how an art collector must feel when he discovers a hidden antique masterpiece – or how a stone collector unexpectedly finds a gem on the roadside !
Many years ago, I heard a quotation attributed to this man, which I have often quoted, but without knowing anything about the author, until recently, when a cousin who had studied him, referred me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
So, I have recently come to find out about this most fascinating man from another age and era. But, it seems that many others have already known about him for a long time, even studied him and his works. Why oh why, haven't I come across him before now, I ask myself ? Have you ?
If not, then may I introduce you to him ...... warts and all ?
Excerpts of his biography copied / condensed as follows .... (the bold emphasis is mine!)
William Blake (1757 - 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.
Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.
His visual artistry has led one British art journalist to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".
Although he only once journeyed farther than a day's walk outside London during his lifetime, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich heritage, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".
Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.
William never attended school, and was educated at home by his mother
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.
The Blakes were Dissenters, and are believed to have belonged to the Moravian Church.
The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life. He was reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England
At the age of 21, he was to become a professional engraver.
Blake married Catherine, who was five years his junior. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an 'X'. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.
Blake's marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. There is a reference to "stormy times" in the early years of the marriage.
Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfilment.
Although Blake's attacks on conventional religion were shocking in his own day, his rejection of religiosity was not a rejection of religion per se.
His view of orthodoxy is evident in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a series of texts written in imitation of Biblical prophecy.
Therein, Blake lists several Proverbs of Hell, amongst which are the following:
- Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
- As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
In The Everlasting Gospel, Blake does not present Jesus as a philosopher or traditional messianic figure but as a supremely creative being, above dogma, logic and even morality:
- If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
- He'd have done anything to please us:
- Gone sneaking into the Synagogues
- And not used the Elders & Priests like Dogs,
- But humble as a Lamb or an Ass,
- Obey himself to Caiaphas.
- God wants not man to humble himself
Jesus, for Blake, symbolises the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity: All had originally one language and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus."
Blake designed his own mythology, which appears largely in his prophetic books. Within these Blake describes a number of characters. This mythology seems to have a basis in the Bible and in Greek mythology, and it accompanies his ideas about the everlasting Gospel. “I must create a system. or be enslaved by another man's I will not reason and compare, my business is to create “
One of Blake's strongest objections to orthodox Christianity is that he felt it encouraged the suppression of natural desires and discouraged earthly joy.
In A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake says that:
Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. |
” |
Blake does not subscribe to the notion of a distinct body from the soul, and which must submit to the rule of soul, but rather sees body as an extension of soul derived from the 'discernment' of the senses. Thus, the emphasis orthodoxy places upon the denial of bodily urges is a dualistic error born of misapprehension of the relationship between body and soul; elsewhere, he describes Satan as the 'State of Error', and as being beyond salvation.
Blake opposed the sophistry of theological thought that excuses pain, admits evil and apologises for injustice. He abhorred self-denial,which he associated with religious repression and particularly with sexual repression: "Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."
He saw the concept of 'sin' as a trap to bind men’s desires (the briars of Garden of Love), and believed that restraint in obedience to a moral code imposed from the outside was against the spirit of life:
- Abstinence sows sand all over
- The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
- But Desire Gratified
- Plants fruits & beauty there.
He did not hold with the doctrine of God as Lord, an entity separate from and superior to mankind; this is shown clearly in his words about Jesus Christ: "He is the only God ... and so am I, and so are you."
A telling phrase in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is "men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast". This is very much in line with his belief in liberty and equality in society and between the sexes.
Blake claimed to experience visions throughout his life. They were often associated with beautiful religious themes and imagery, and therefore may have inspired him further with spiritual works and pursuits. Certainly, religious concepts and imagery figure centrally in Blake's works.
God and Christianity constituted the intellectual centre of his writings, from which he drew inspiration. In addition, Blake believed that he was personally instructed and encouraged by Archangels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by those same Archangels.
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)".
In one poem, narrated by a black child, white and black bodies alike are described as shaded groves or clouds, which exist only until one learns "to bear the beams of love":
Blake shared Dante's distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante's work pictorially.
Even as he seemed to near death, Blake's central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno; he is said to have spent one of the very last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.
On the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, "Stay Kate! Keep just as you are – I will draw your portrait – for you have ever been an angel to me."
Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses.
At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died.
Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the same house, present at his expiration, said, "I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel."
George Richmond gives the following account of Blake's death in a letter to Samuel Palmer:
He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said he was going to that country he had all his life wished to see & expressed himself happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ
Just before he died His countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst out singing of the things he saw in Heaven. |
” |
Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her He was buried five days after his death – on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary – at the Dissenter's burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred.
Following Blake's death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as a housekeeper. During this period, she believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first "consulting Mr. Blake".
On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now".
Blake’s grave is commemorated by a stone that reads "Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757-1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762-1831". This memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres away from the actual spot of Blake’s grave, which is not marked. However, members of the group Friends of William Blake have rediscovered the location of Blake's grave and intend to place a permanent memorial at the site.
Blake's work was neglected for almost a century after his death, but his reputation gained momentum in the 20th century, both from being rehabilitated by critics, but also due to an increasing number of classical composers such as Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams adapting his works.
Many have argued that Blake's thoughts on human nature greatly anticipate and parallel the thinking of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, although Jung dismissed Blake's works as "an artistic production rather than an authentic representation of unconscious processes.
Blake had an enormous influence on the beat poets of the 1950s and the counterculture of the 1960s, frequently being cited by such seminal figures as beat poet Allen Ginsberg and songwriter Bob Dylan.
Much of the central ideas from Phillip Pullman's famous fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are rooted in the world of Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
In wider culture Blake's poetry has been set to music by popular composers. It has been especially popular with musicians since the 1960s.
Blake's engravings have also had significant influence on the modern graphic novel.
Blake is now recognised as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica.
The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949.
In 1957 a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey, in memory of him and his wife.
I must say, that ...... there is much I like about this man .... this talented thinker,
from another age of 200 years ago, but so much ahead of his time and era !
I am sorry that I had not come across him earlier in my life.
My early thoughts about him are these ...
A non-conformist .... unappreciated by his contemporaries .... even considered mad !
but this is quite usual for those ahead of their times, he's in good company .... with Jesus etc
At home with the Bible, but at odds with the structured religiosity ... again, in good company with Jesus etc
His parents - advocates for home -schooling !
Emancipation of women's rights .... far ahead of his time
His abhorrence of slavery and belief in racial and sexual equality ..... also far ahead of his time
His realisation that JOY is a human treasure, and at odds with the religious suppression of it ... great
His distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power .... I applaud
His death-bed experience .... wow WOW
But being uniquely unique, it would appear to me at first look, that his theology was not quite in line with the Bible he endorsed .... in that ....
he did not seem to accept a moral code or the concept of moral 'sin'
to me, that does not fit with the 10 commandments and Scripture etc etc
also, to me, self-denial and discipline sit within the liberality and freedom he vouchsafed (but he was undoubtedly influenced by his experience with religiosity of his day)
also, to me, scripture shows the distinction between body, soul and spirit 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Hebrews 4:12
But not wanting to 'throw the baby out with the bath water', his free-thinking has much appeal.
I repeat ..... there is much I like about the man
I hope to study him further
Incidentally, my oft repeated quotation of his :
Good men must do their good deeds in the minute particular
Any who talk of the general welfare, are scoundrels, flatterers, and rogues
Ray Miller
