BLAKE & FUSELI II

This is a continuation the post BLAKE & FUSELI with Blake's illustrations to Blair's The Grave with comments attributed to Blake's friend Henry Fuseli. 

Wikimedia commons supplied the images for the links. The original watercolor designs rather than the engravings from the book are shown.
 
III. DEATH'S DOOR. 
The Door opening, that seems to make utter darkness visible; age, on crutches, hurried by a tempest into it. Above is the renovated man seated in light and glory.

IV. THE STRONG AND WICKED  MAN DYING.

Extent of limb, a broad capacious chest, heaving in agony, and prodigious muscular force, so exerted as to pourtray the excruciating torments of mind and body, all contribute to give a fearful picture of the Strong and Wicked Man in the pangs of Death. His masculine soul is hurried through the casement in flame, while his daughter hides her face with horror not to be resisted, and his frantic wife rushes forward, as if resolved to share his fate.

V. THE GOOD OLD MAN DYING. 

Never perhaps were two subjects more happily conceived, and beautifully contrasted, than this and the former. In that all is confusion, hurry, and terror; in this are perfect repose, beatic hope, and heavenly consolation. Peace in his countenance, his hand on the gospel, his soul devoutly ascending to eternal bliss, his affectionate children, some in prayer, others believing, or at least anxiously hoping, that he still lives; all denote how great is the happiness of the Good Man in the Hour of Death.

VI. THE SOUL HOVERING OVER THE BODY.

"How wishfully she looks
On all she's leaving, now no longer tier's!"

VII. THE SOUL EXPLORING THE
RECESSES OF THE GRAVE.  
The Soul, prior to the dissolution of the Body, exploring through and beyond the tomb, and there discovering the emblems of mortality and of immortality.
 

[Milton Klonsky comments on this picture in William Blake the Seer and his Visions:
"As envisioned by Blake the soul, like Jung's 'anima,' is feminine, the spirit is masculine. Poised above the tomb that contains their body, he observes the scene with dread. The moony landscape indicates that this revelation is taking place within a dream." (Page 98)] 

VIII. THE COUNSELLOR, KING, WARRIOR, MOTHER, AND CHILD.

All are equal in the Grave. Wisdom, Power, Valour, Beauty, and Innocence, at the hour of death, alike are impotent and unavailing.

 Letters, 1800, (E 707)
"When Flaxman was taken to Italy. Fuseli was giv'n to me for a season" 

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