FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

William Blake wanted to make art accessible to the people since he considered art to be the whole of life and not an optional addition. One of his ideas was to paint movable temperas or 'frescos' which individuals could hang on the walls of their homes. Thomas Butts became a customer in a big way for these items by ordering in 1799, fifty temperas of Biblical subjects. The medium which Blake used for these 'frescos' proved to be less than durable leading to cracking and darkening of the surface. However a number have survived. The Blake Archive has recently added a group to their collection of images.

This image is from a Christie's offering of Blake's Flight into Egypt from 1799.


Blake pictures the holy family to be well protected on their journey under the wings of angels. Surrounding cherubs express their delight. The contrary is offered by the bedraggled but patient donkey who plods along.

Matthew 2
12] And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
[13] And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
[14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
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SMALL BOOK OF DESIGNS

In the British Museum is the one complete copy of Blake's Small Book of Designs which includes 23 Plates. It is designated Copy A because pages from a second copy (B) are scattered among various owners. There is not a complete second set, but duplicates of 16 plates have been located. Many of the images from the second copy bear inscriptions.

The British Museum has recently released its collection of non-copyright protected material for non-commercial educational use. The images of the Small Book of Designs are distributed among the 1697 items found in a search of the database for William Blake. With appreciation to the British Museum, I display Page 1 of the Small Book of Designs which reproduces the Title page of the Book of Urizen. From the duplicate in Copy B, we learn the inscription for the page:

Page 1
From the Book of UrizenTitle Plate

Which is the Way/The Right or the Left

David Erdman in The Illuminated Blake describes the picture: Urizen holds in his left hand a quill for writing in his book (law); in his right he holds a brush of engraver for illustrating it (imagination). "He is writing secrets and commandments, but his copy book is enrooting; the closed books in which he is transcribing may be seen as a single coffin lid; the Mosaic tablets at his back (where the proverb-communicating Devil of Marriage 10 has living wings) suggest a double tombstone: are both Testaments stony to Urizen?" (Page 183)

Urizen, Plate 2, (E 70)
"Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary."

Urizen, Plate 4, (E 72)
"7. Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.

8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
One King, one God, one Law.

Chap: III.

1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul

PLATE 5
In living creations appear'd
In the flames of eternal fury."

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 80, (E 355)
"And Urizen Read in his book of brass in sounding tones

Listen O Daughters to my voice Listen to the Words of Wisdom
So shall [ye] govern over all let Moral Duty tune your tongue
But be your hearts harder than the nether millstone
To bring the shadow of Enitharmon beneath our wondrous tree
That Los may Evaporate like smoke & be no more
Draw down Enitharmon to the Spectre of Urthona
And let him have dominion over Los the terrible shade

Compell the poor to live upon a Crust of bread by soft mild arts
Smile when they frown frown when they smile & when a man looks pale
With labour & abstinence say he looks healthy & happy
And when his children Sicken let them die there are enough
Born even too many & our Earth will be overrun
Without these arts If you would make the poor live with temper
With pomp give every crust of bread you give with gracious cunning
Magnify small gifts reduce the man to want a gift & then give with pomp
Say he smiles if you hear him sigh If pale say he is ruddy
Preach temperance say he is overgorgd & drowns his wit
In strong drink tho you know that bread & water are all
He can afford Flatter his wife pity his children till we can

Reduce all to our will as spaniels are taught with art"

The alternative way to Urizen's Book of Brass is not offered in these passages but can be constructed from the poetry.

Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 145)
"The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who
waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviours kingdom,
the Divine Body; will never enter there."

Jerusalem, Plate 22, (E 168)
"Jerusalem then stretchd her hand toward the Moon & spoke

Why should Punishment Weave the Veil with Iron Wheels of War
When Forgiveness might it Weave with Wings of Cherubim"

The Book of Brass is the attempt to "Create a Heaven in which all shall be pure & holy In their Own Selfhoods" to claim for ones own reasoning power and self perception of moral virtue what God has freely given to us. His is the 'kingdom, the power and the glory.' Jerusalem, Plate 49, (E 199)
"Striving to Create a Heaven in which all shall be pure & holy
In their Own Selfhoods, in Natural Selfish Chastity to banish Pity
And dear Mutual Forgiveness; & to become One Great Satan
Inslavd to the most powerful Selfhood: to murder the Divine Humanity
In whose sight all are as the dust & who chargeth his Angels with folly!"

Romans 6
[23] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Phillipians 2
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
[8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
[9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name
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DESIGNS 2,3,4

Images from the British Museum

Keri Davies has suggested that the Small Book of Designs with the inscription which appear in Copy B resembles an Emblem Book. Blake produced one Emblem Book, Gates of Paradise; he may have intended the Small Book of Designs as another. With the inscriptions we are led to view the series of pictures as a unit rather than as individual examples of his earlier work.

Page 2
From Plate 11
Marriage of Heaven and Hell

"Death & Hell/Teem with Life"

Marriage of Heaven and Hell. PLATE 11, (E 38)
"The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or
Geniuses calling them by the names and adorning them with the
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations,
and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city &
country. placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of &
enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the
mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."

Page 3
From Plate 17
Book of Urizen

"Vegetating in fibres of Blood"

Book of Urizen , Plate 16, 18, (E 78)
"So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life blood trembling

PLATE 18
8. The globe of life blood trembled
Branching out into roots;
Fib'rous, writhing upon the winds;
Fibres of blood, milk and tears;
In pangs, eternity on eternity.
At length in tears & cries imbodied
A female form trembling and pale
Waves before his deathy face

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight
Of the first female now separate
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los"

Page 4
From Plate 16
Marriage of Heaven and Hell

"Who shall set/the Prisoners free"

Marriage of Heaven and Hell , PLATE 16, (E 40)
"The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence
and now seem to live in it in chains; are in truth. the causes
of its life & the sources of all activity, but the chains are,
the cunning of weak and tame minds. which have power to resist
energy. according to the proverb, the weak in courage is strong
in cunning.
Thus one portion of being, is the Prolific. the other, the
Devouring: to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in
his chains, but it is not so, he only takes portions of existence
and fancies that the whole."
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DESIGNS 5,6,7

Images from the British Museum

The Small Book of Designs was produced by Blake for Ozias Humphery in 1794. In an 1809 letter to Dawson Turner, Blake writes:

Letters, Number 67, (E 771)
"Those I Printed for Mr Humphry are a selection from the
different Books of such as could be Printed without the Writing
tho to the Loss of some of the best things For they when Printed
perfect accompany Poetical Personifications & Acts without which
Poems they never could have been Executed"

Page 5
From Plate 14
Marriage of Heaven & Hell

"A Flaming Sword/Revolving every way"

Marriage of Heaven & Hell , PLATE 14, (E 39)
"The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire
at the end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now appears finite & corrupt."

For more on this image read Consumed in Fire.

Plate 6
From Plate 20
Marriage of Heaven & Hell

"O revolving serpent/O the ocean of Time & Space"

Marriage of Heaven & Hell , Plate 20, (E 42)
"So the Angel said: thy phantasy has imposed upon me & thou
oughtest to be ashamed.
I answerd: we impose on one another, & it is but lost time
to converse with you whose works are only Analytics."

For more on this image read True Friendship.

Page 7
From Plate 23
Book of Urizen

"Fearless tho in pain/I travel on"

Book of Urizen, Plate 21, 23,(E 81)
"1. Urizen explor'd his dens
Mountain, moor, & wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey
A fearful journey, annoy'd
By cruel enormities: forms
PLATE 23
2. And his world teemd vast enormities
Frightning; faithless; fawning
Portions of life; similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head
Or a heart, or an eye, they swam mischevous
Dread terrors! delighting in blood

3. Most Urizen sicken'd to see
His eternal creations appear
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha
From the waters emerging, laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon
Flam'd out! first begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit.

4. He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment."
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DESIGNS 8,9,10

Images from the British Museum

Eight of the images in the Small Book of Designs were discovered in a Railway Timetable sold in a lot of used books in the 1970's. The images had been separated from the set and disappeared from sight for about a century and a quarter. They now belong to the Tate Gallery and are shown here by the BBC.

Page 8
From Book of UrizenPlate 24

No Inscription

Milton , Plate 15 [17], (E 109)
"First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,
Deadly pale outstretchd and snowy cold, storm coverd;
A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretchd on the rock
In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunderd aloud
Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death
Hovering over the cold bosom, in its vortex Milton bent down
To the bosom of death, what was underneath soon seemd above.
A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin;
But as a wintry globe descends precipitant thro' Beulah bursting,
With thunders loud and terrible: so Miltons shadow fell
Precipitant loud thundring into the Sea of Time & Space."

Four Zoas. Page 51, (E 334)
"Tharmas before Los stood & thus the Voice of Tharmas rolld

Now all comes into the power of Tharmas. Urizen is falln
And Luvah hidden in the Elemental forms of Life & Death
Urthona is My Son O Los thou art Urthona & Tharmas
Is God. The Eternal Man is seald never to be deliverd
I roll my floods over his body my billows & waves pass over him
The Sea encompasses him & monsters of the deep are his companions
Dreamer of furious oceans cold sleeper of weeds & shells
Thy Eternal form shall never renew my uncertain prevails against thee
Yet tho I rage God over all. A portion of my Life
That in Eternal fields in comfort wanderd with my flocks
At noon & laid her head upon my wearied bosom at night
She is divided She is vanishd even like Luvah & Vala
O why did foul ambition sieze thee Urizen Prince of Light"
For more on this image read Wartry Tharmas or Air, Water, Earth & Fire.

Page 9
From Book of Urizen
Plate 3

"Oh! Flames of Furious Desire"

Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 145)
"Reader! [lover] of books! [lover] of heaven,
And of that God from whom [all books are given,]
Who in mysterious Sinais awful cave
To Man the wond'rous art of writing gave,
Again he speaks in thunder and in fire!
Thunder of Thought, & flames of fierce desire:
Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear,
Within the unfathomd caverns of my Ear.
Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:
Heaven, Earth & Hell, henceforth shall live in harmony

Of the Measure, in which
the following Poem is written"

Jerusalem, Plate 66, (E 219)
"And as their eye & ear shrunk, the heavens shrunk away
The Divine Vision became First a burning flame, then a column
Of fire, then an awful fiery wheel surrounding earth & heaven:
And then a globe of blood wandering distant in all unknown night:"
Jerusalem, Plate 68, (E 222)
"Once Man was occupied in intellectual pleasures & energies
But now my soul is harrowd with grief & fear & love & desire
And now I hate & now I love & Intellect is no more:
There is no time for any thing but the torments of love & desire"

Page 10
From Thel
Plate 2

No Inscription

Thel, Plate 1, (E 3)
"Ah! Thel is like a watry bow. and like a parting cloud.
Like a reflection in a glass. like shadows in the water.
Like dreams of infants. like a smile upon an infants face,
Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air;
Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head.
And gentle sleep the sleep of death. and gentle hear the voice
Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time."
For more on this image read Thel II.
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DESIGNS 11,12,13

The Small Book of Designs in the British Museum contains 23 plates with images which Blake derived from 4 of his Illuminated books. Thirteen designs are from the Book of Urizen, four from Thel, four from the Marriage of Heaven & Hell and two from Visions of the Daughters of Albion.

The three pages for today's post are from the Book of Urizen. The Morgan Library's copy of Urizen can be viewed online. Notice the difference in application of color in this copy of Urizen and in Small Book of Designs.

Page 11
From Book of Urizen
Plate 27

No Inscription

Book of Urizen , Plate 20, (E 80)
"5. The dead heard the voice of the child
And began to awake from sleep
All things. heard the voice of the child
And began to awake to life.

6. And Urizen craving with hunger
Stung with the odours of Nature
Explor'd his dens around

7. He form'd a line & a plummet
To divide the Abyss beneath.
He form'd a dividing rule:

8. He formed scales to weigh;
He formed massy weights;
He formed a brazen quadrant;
He formed golden compasses
And began to explore the Abyss
And he planted a garden of fruits"

Page 12
From Book of Urizen
Plate 2

Teach these Souls to Fly

Four Zoas , Night II, Page 34, (E 324)
"The birds & beasts rejoice & play
And every one seeks for his mate to prove his inmost joy

Furious & terrible they sport & rend the nether deeps
The deep lifts up his rugged head
And lost in infinite hum[m]ing wings vanishes with a cry
The fading cry is ever dying
The living voice is ever living in its inmost joy

Arise you little glancing wings & sing your infant joy
Arise & drink your bliss
For every thing that lives is holy for the source of life
Descends to be a weeping babe
For the Earthworm renews the moisture of the sandy plain

Now my left hand I stretch to earth beneath
And strike the terrible string
I wake sweet joy in dens of sorrow & I plant a smile
In forests of affliction
And wake the bubbling springs of life in regions of dark death"

For more on this image read Stand Alone.
Page 13
From Book of Urizen
Page 8

No Inscription

Book of Los , Plate 4, (E 92)
"1: The Immortal stood frozen amidst
The vast rock of eternity; times
And times; a night of vast durance:
Impatient, stifled, stiffend, hardned.

2: Till impatience no longer could bear
The hard bondage, rent: rent, the vast solid
With a crash from immense to immense

3: Crack'd across into numberless fragments
The Prophetic wrath, strug'ling for vent
Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust
And crumbling with bursting sobs; heaves
The black marble on high into fragments

4: Hurl'd apart on all sides, as a falling
Rock: the innumerable fragments away
Fell asunder; and horrible vacuum
Beneath him & on all sides round.

5: Falling, falling! Los fell & fell
Sunk precipitant heavy down down
Times on times, night on night, day on day
Truth has bounds. Error none: falling, falling:
Years on years, and ages on ages
Still he fell thro' the void, still a void
Found for falling day & night without end.
For tho' day or night was not; their spaces
Were measurd by his incessant whirls
In the horrid vacuity bottomless."
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DESIGNS 14,15,16

All of the images on this series of posts on the Small Book of Designs are from the British Museum. To read what the Curator writes about the book, click here and page down to comments.

From a Curator of the British Museum:
"Both books [Small and Large Books of Designs] exist in two copies (A and B). The British Museum has copies A (1856,0209.417 - 447). Copies B contain lighter impressions, produce when the inked plate was passed back through the press for a second pull, with little or no new ink added. Provenance, and documentary evidence, link the various impressions of copies A as series. The impressions in copies B are scattered among different collections and Copies B are only considered as "books" by inference from copies A. Copy B of "A Small Book of Designs" has inscriptions added by Blake."

In these posts the images from copy A and the inscription from Copy B are brought together so that the book may be considered as an Emblem Book.

Page 14
From Book of Urizen
Plate 19

Is the Female death/Become new Life

Book of Urizen , Plate 19, (E79)
"1. But Los saw the Female & pitied
He embrac'd her, she wept, she refus'd
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd

2. Eternity shudder'd when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness,
On his own divided image.

3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect the tent;
When Enitharmon sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.

4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm
In the trembling womb
To be moulded into existence

5. All day the worm lay on her bosom
All night within her womb
The worm lay till it grew to a serpent
With dolorous hissings & poisons
Round Enitharmons loins folding,

6. Coild within Enitharmons womb
The serpent grew casting its scales,
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry,
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird & beast,
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a worm before.

7. The Eternals their tent finished
Alarm'd with these gloomy visions
When Enitharmon groaning
Produc'd a man Child to the light.

8. A shriek ran thro' Eternity:
And a paralytic stroke;
At the birth of the Human shadow.

9. Delving earth in his resistless way;
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu'd from Enitharmon.

10. The Eternals, closed the tent
They beat down the stakes the cords
PLATE 20
Stretch'd for a work of eternity;
No more Los beheld Eternity."

For more on this image read Mental Traveller 19-21.

Page 15
From the Book of Urizen
Plate 10

Does the Soul labour thus/ In Caverns of The Grave

Four Zoas , Page 43, 44, (E 329)

"Down from the dismal North the Prince in thunders & thick clouds
As when the thunderbolt down falleth on the appointed place
Fell down down rushing ruining thundering shuddering
Into the Caverns of the Grave & places of Human Seed
Where the impressions of Despair & Hope enroot forever
A world of Darkness. Ahania fell far into Non Entity"

For more on this image read Caverns of the Grave.

Page 16
From the Book of Thel
Plate 6

No Inscription

Book of Thel, Plate 3,4, (E 5)
"The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lillys leaf,
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale.
PLATE 4
Then Thel astonish'd view'd the Worm upon its dewy bed.

Art thou a Worm? image of weakness. art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lillys leaf:
Ah weep not little voice, thou can'st not speak. but thou can'st weep;
Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless & naked: weeping,
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mothers smiles."

For more on this image read Blake's Worm.

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