DEFENDING FRIENDS

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Illustrations to Blair's The Grave

Reunion of Soul and Body

William Blake and Henry Fuseli shared the trait of being misunderstood by many of their contemporaries. Each felt compelled to defend the other when he felt his friend was under attack by someone who was incapable of appreciating the level of insight the other had reached.

Blake wrote this letter for publication in the Monthly Magazine. Blake was reacting to criticism in the article published in the Bell's Weekly Messenger which found fault with Fuseli's portrayal of the physical and mental suffering of Count Ugolino when he and his children were imprisoned in Pisa.

Letters, (E 768)
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.
[In the Monthly Magazine, XXI (July 1, 1806)]

"SIR,
     My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criticism
in Bell's Weekly Messenger (25th May) on the picture of Count
Ugolino, by Mr. Fuseli, in the Royal Academy exhibition; and your
Magazine being as extensive in its circulation as that Paper, as
it also must from its nature be more permanent, I take the
advantageous opportunity to counteract the widely-diffused malice
which has for many years, under the pretence of admiration of the
arts, been assiduously sown and planted among the English public
against true art, such as it existed in the days of Michael
Angelo and Raphael.  Under pretence of fair criticism and
candour, the most wretched taste ever produced has been upheld
for many, very many years: but now, I say, now its end is come.
Such an artist as Fuseli is invulnerable, he needs not my
defence; but I should be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulder,
and whole strength, against those wretches who, under pretence of
criticism, use the dagger and the poison.
     My criticism on this picture is as follows:

     Mr. Fuseli's Count Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling
and dignity, who would not sit looking in their parent's face in
the moment of his agony, but would rather retire and die in
secret, while they suffer him to indulge his passionate and
innocent grief, his innocent and venerable madness, and insanity,
and fury, and whatever paltry cold hearted critics cannot,
because they dare not, look upon.  Fuseli's Count Ugolino is a
man of wonder and admiration, of resentment against man and
devil, and of humilitation before God; prayer and parental
affection fills the figure from head to foot.  The child in his
arms, whether boy or girl signifies not, (but the critic must be
a fool who has not read Dante, and who does not know a boy from a
girl); I say, the child is as beautifully drawn as it is
coloured--in both, inimitable! and the effect of the whole is
truly sublime, on account of that very colouring which our critic
calls black and heavy.  The German flute colour, which was used
by the Flemings, (they call it burnt bone), has possessed the eye
of certain connoisseurs, that they cannot see appropriate
colouring, and are blind to the gloom of a real terror.

     The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon
pictures imported from Flanders and Holland; consequently our
countrymen are easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and
hence it is so common to hear a man say, "I am no judge of
pictures:" but, O Englishmen! know that every man ought to be a
judge of pictures, and every man is so who has not been
connoisseured out of his senses.
     

 A gentleman who visited me the other day, said, "I am very
much surprised
at the dislike that some connoisseurs shew on viewing the
pictures of Mr. Fuseli; but the truth is, he is a hundred years
beyond the present generation." Though I am startled at such
an assertion, I hope the contemporary taste will shorten the
hundred years into as many hours; for I am sure that any
person consulting his own eyes must prefer what is so
supereminent; and I am as sure that any person consulting
his own reputation, or the reputation of his country, will
refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged criticisms in
future.
Yours,
WM. BLAKE. 

_____________ 

Fuseli's support of Blake was provided when the publisher Cromek reneged on his promise to have Blake engrave his own designs for a new issue of Blair's The Grave. When Cromek engaged Schiavonetti to do the engravings, depriving Blake of the income, Fuselli contributed remarks in support of Blake's designs in the introduction to the publication.

The recognition of Blake's designs by Fuseli may have eased the sting of rejection, but it did not allieviate the harm which Blake had endured. Fuseli could defend Blake attempts to make perceptible the spiritual world in imagery which was accessible to the public, but he couldn't overcome common man's taste for the predictable and conventional.

The Grave

London, July 1808.

Cromek wrote:

"To the elegant and classical taste of Mr. FUSELI he is indebted for excellent remarks on the moral worth and picturesque dignity of the Designs that accompany this Poem. Mr. Philips is entitled to his kindest thanks, for the capitally painted Portrait of Mr. William Blake, which is here presented to the Subscribers; and to Mr. SCHIAVONETTI he is under still greater obligations for a ETCHINGS which, it is not too much praise to say, no other artist could have executed so ably."

Fuseli wrote:

"The moral series here submitted to the Public, from its object and method of execution, has a double claim on general attention.

In an age of equal refinement and corruption of manners, when systems of education and seduction go hand in hand; when religion itself compounds with fashion; when in the pursuit of present enjoyment, all consideration of futurity vanishes, and the real object of life is lost—in such an age, every exertion confers a benefit on society which tends to impress man with his destiny, to hold the mirror up to life, less indeed to discriminate its characters, than those situations which show what all are born for, what all ought to act for, and what all must inevitably come to.

The importance of this object has been so well understood at every period of time, from the earliest and most innocent, to the latest and most depraved, that reason and fancy have exhausted their stores of argument and imagery, to impress it on the mind : animate and inanimate nature, the seasons, the forest and the field, the bee and ant, the larva, chrysalis and moth, have lent their real or supposed analogies with the origin, pursuits, and end of the human race, so often to emblematic purposes, that instruction is become stale, and attention callous. The serpent with its tail in its mouth, from a type of eternity, is become an infant's bauble ; even the nobler idea of Hercules pausing between virtue and vice, or the varied imagery of Death leading his patients to the grave, owe their effect upon us more to technic excellence than allegoric utility.

Aware of this, but conscious that affectation of originality and trite repetition would equally impede the author of the moral series before us, has endeavoured to wake sensibility by touching our sympathies with nearer, less ambiguous, and less ludicrous imagery, than what mythology, Gothic superstition, or symbols as far-fetched as inadequate, could supply. His invention has been chiefly employed to spread a familiar and domestic atmosphere round the most important of all subjects, to connect the visible and the invisible world, without provoking probability, and to lead the eye from the milder light of time to the radiations of eternity.

Such is the plan and the moral part of the author's invention; the technic part, and the execution of the artist, though to be examined by other principles, and addressed to a narrower circle, equally claim approbation, sometimes excite our wonder, and not seldom our fears, when we see him play on the very verge of legitimate invention; but wildness so picturesque in itself, so often redeemed by taste, simplicity, and elegance, what child of fancy, what artist would wish to discharge? The groups and single figures on their own basis, abstracted from the general composition, and considered without attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine and unaffected attitudes, those simple graces which nature and the heart alone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both, discover. Every class of artists, in every stage of their progress or attainments, from the student to the finished master, and from the contriver of ornament, to the painter of history, will find here materials of art and hints of improvement !"

HENRY FUSELI.