LARGE COLOR PRINTS

 First posted Feb 2014

In 1795 the creative juices were flowing so copiously in William Blake that he hadn't finished one project before he started another. The printings of illuminated books led to his creating the series of painting know as The Large Color Printed Drawings. The group is held together by their large size, in the range of dimensions of 12 to 24 inches, compared to the illuminated books whose pages were typically under 9 inches in size, sometimes only 4 or 5 inches. In addition the method of production was unusual and fairly uniform for the group. The technique was that of a monoprint, although two or three prints were made from each painted drawing created. This was facilitated by the additional work Blake put into the image after it was pulled from the painted surface which made it into a highly finished painting. 
 
Although the paintings are much admired, there has been little agreement on the theme which Blake intended in deciding on the subject matter of particular images. Individual pictures are associated with Shakespeare, Milton, the Old and New Testament of the Bible, and events of Blake's own time.
 
By arranging the series from creation to resurrection it is possible to see in the series the habitual structure of creation, fall and return which Blake discerns as the paradigm of human or spiritual development. The order I will follow in later posts is:

1. Elohim Creating Adam
2. Satan Exaulting Over Eve
3. The Good  and Evil Angels
4. God Judging Adam
5. Lamech and His Two Wives
6. Nebuchadnezzar
7. The House of Death
8. Hecate or The Night of Enitharmon's Joy
9. Newton
10. Naomi Entreating Ruth
11. Pity
12. Christ Appearing to the Apostles

Blake uses the term fresco to refer to his painting in watercolor harkening back to Michelangelo's technique on plaster.

Public Address, (E 577)
 "Fresco Painting is properly Miniature, or Enamel Painting;
every thing in Fresco is as high finished as Miniature or Enamel,
although in Works larger than Life.  The Art has been lost: I
have recovered it.  How this was done, will be told, together
with the whole Process, in a Work on Art, now in the Press.  The
ignorant Insults of Individuals will not hinder me from doing my
duty to my Art.  Fresco Painting, as it is now practised, is like
most other things, the contrary of what it pretends to be.
  The execution of my Designs, being all in Water-colours,
(that is in Fresco) are regularly refused to be exhibited by the
Royal Academy, and the British Institution has, 
this year, followed its example, and has effectually excluded me 
by this Resolution; I therefore invite those Noblemen and 
Gentlem[e]n, who are its Subscribers, to inspect what they have 
excluded: and those who have been told that my Works are
but an unscientific and irregular Eccentricity, a Madman's
Scrawls, I demand of them to do me the justice to examine before
they decide.
  There cannot be more than two or three great Painters or
Poets in any Age or Country; and these, in a corrupt state of
Society, are easily excluded, but not so easily obstructed.  They
have ex[c]luded Watercolours; it is therefore become necessary
that I should exhibit to the Public, in an Exhibition of my own,
my Designs, Painted in Watercolours.  If Italy is enriched and
made great by RAPHAEL, if MICHAEL ANGELO is its supreme glory, if
Art is the glory of a Nation, if Genius and Inspiration are the
great Origin and Bond of Society, the distinction my Works have
obtained from those who best understand such things, calls for my
Exhibition as the greatest of Duties to my Country."
May 15. 1809
                                             WILLIAM BLAKE

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 40

In The Illuminated Blake, Erdman tells us that in the right border of this plate we can see William and Catherine Blake at work creating the designs we so enjoy. "These two are Los and Enitharmon working in line and color, but in their mundane vehicles ... i.e. William and Catherine Blake...Here he is walking in the line...which his right foot sends down to Catherine's arms and feet. This leaves the poet's writing arm free while his sixfold printing arm can fill the sky with grape leaves in three color varieties and spin a tight wiry coil of communication to break past its limit...Catherine's influence turns the vine to green ribbons; a spare paintbrush with five red dipped fingers and a flower brush curls at her other side."  

 

COLOUR PRINTING

williamblake.org
Elohim Creating Adam

Ever the artist and the inventor, Blake embarked on the project in 1795 of developing a new technique and a fresh method of communicating his thoughts. In addition to creating his illuminated books which combined his engraved poetry and illuminations in book form, he worked out a method to make larger images suitable for display on walls. These would not use his small printing press to print from engraved copper plates but would make prints from paintings on mill board transferred to sheets of paper. Working quickly he could make up to three pictures from one painting on the mill board.

In his illuminated books his images were supplemented by words. In his large colour prints the image itself would convey his symbolic thought by implication. Blake chose designs with which his audience may be familiar from reading the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, or Shakespeare or Milton. The individual pictures recalled specific stories which contributed to his own concepts of the relationship of God and Man. For Blake Man was bound to God by an indelible cord, but the relationship between the two was constantly developing. The Large Colour Printed Drawings convey stages in the tense process of evolving spiritual consciousness.

Scholars have not definitively described how Blake made his Large Coloured Printed Drawings but many have attempted to understand his process which involved layering, pigments, binders and fixatives.

An early description of Blake's tempera technique by Frederick Tatham:

"Blake, when he wanted to make his prints in oil, took a common thick millboard, and drew in some strong ink or colour his design on it strong and thick. He then painted on it in such oil colours and in such a fashion that they would blur well. He painted roughly and quickly, so that no colour would have time to dry. He then took a print of that on paper, and this impression he coloured up in water-colours, repainting his outline on the millboard when he wanted to take another print...he could vary slightly each impression; and each having a sort of accidental look, he could branch out so as to make each one different."

Bruce MacEvoy on his website wrote that Blake's Large Color Printed Drawings were:

"likely made by creating a strong line drawing in ink on a large firm sheet of absorbent millboard, then roughly painting the areas within this outline with an oily paint (sometimes mixed with chalk). Sheets of paper were pressed against this plate before the paint had dried, transferring the colored image to the paper with a fresco like mottling and unevenness (visible at the top of the image). Once dried, these prints were lightly coated with a glue sizing, then further colored with watercolors, and the black outlines clarified and elaborated with pen and ink. This method of making prints was much faster and simpler than cutting a large copper plate; it also introduced random textural and color variations in each print, and allowed changes in the coloring or design as the paints on the millboard were refreshed for new prints."

Milton, Plate 29 [31], (E 128)

"The River rises above his banks to wash the Woof:                
He takes it in his arms: be passes it in strength thro his current
The veil of human miseries is woven over the Ocean
From the Atlantic to the Great South Sea, the Erythrean.

Such is the World of Los the labour of six thousand years.
Thus Nature is a Vision of the Science of the Elohim.            

                 End of the First Book." 

Jerusalem, Plate 73, (E 228) 

"Where Luvahs World of Opakeness grew to a period: It
Became a Limit, a Rocky hardness without form & void
Accumulating without end: here Los. who is of the Elohim
Opens the Furnaces of affliction in the Emanation                
Fixing The Sexual into an ever-prolific Generation
Naming the Limit of Opakeness Satan & the Limit of Contraction
Adam, who is Peleg & Joktan: & Esau & Jacob: & Saul & David

Voltaire insinuates that these Limits are the cruel work of God
Mocking the Remover of Limits & the Resurrection of the Dead     
Setting up Kings in wrath: in holiness of Natural Religion
Which Los with his mighty Hammer demolishes time on time
In miracles & wonders in the Four-fold Desart of Albion
Permanently Creating to be in Time Reveald & Demolishd" 

 

PITY IMAGED

First posted March 2014

None of Blake's images conveys more passion, power or enigma than does the Large Color Print which goes by the name Pity. Blake seems to be representing the compassion of a divine being in providing for the supine woman whose feet are in a shroud. The babe is descending from the hands of a woman on an airborne horse. In this copy the resting woman's breast is bare as if prepared to nurse the child.

Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Large Color Print

Pity 

In Blake's poetry pity can be cruel and destructive when in the hands of fallen men and women. Los's pity for Urizen in chains prevented him from halting the fall.

Urizen, Plate 14, (E 77)
"6. Los wept obscur'd with mourning:
His bosom earthquak'd with sighs;
He saw Urizen deadly black,                     
In his chains bound, & Pity began,

7. In anguish dividing & dividing
For pity divides the soul" 

In this poem the attributes which are beneficent in the hands of the angel are used by the devil to create misery. 

Songs and Ballads, (E 470)
"I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing                                      
Mercy Pity Peace    
Is the worlds release

Thus he sung all day                         
Over the new mown hay
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath & the furze                
Mercy could be no more
If there was nobody poor

And pity no more could be
If all were as happy as we
At his curse the sun went down
And the heavens gave a frown

Down pourd the heavy rain   
Over the new reapd grain
And Miseries increase       
Is Mercy Pity Peace"   

As a means of understanding the return journey from the depths of Ulro, the pity of which we speak is an Eternal characteristic. If we look at the picture Pity as a stage in the return of man to Eternity, it portrays the assistance which is provided to man by the Divine Hand and by the emanation in reaching the point at which the Savior can be born in his heart.

Jerusalem, Plate 50, (E 200) 
Come O thou Lamb of God and take away the remembrance of Sin
To Sin & to hide the Sin in sweet deceit. is lovely!!            
To Sin in the open face of day is cruel & pitiless! But
To record the Sin for a reproach: to let the Sun go down
In a remembrance of the Sin: is a Woe & a Horror!
A brooder of an Evil Day, and a Sun rising in blood
Come then O Lamb of God and take away the remembrance of Sin     

Jerusalem, Plate 59, (E 209)
"And one Daughter of Los sat at the fiery Reel & another
Sat at the shining Loom with her Sisters attending round
Terrible their distress & their sorrow cannot be utterd
And another Daughter of Los sat at the Spinning Wheel
Endless their labour, with bitter food. void of sleep,           
Tho hungry they labour: they rouze themselves anxious
Hour after hour labouring at the whirling Wheel
Many Wheels & as many lovely Daughters sit weeping

Yet the intoxicating delight that they take in their work
Obliterates every other evil; none pities their tears            
Yet they regard not pity & they expect no one to pity
For they labour for life & love, regardless of any one
But the poor Spectres that they work for, always incessantly"

Jerusalem, Plate 77  (E 232)
"But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
Creating Nature from this fiery Law,
By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.

Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name
Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease           
Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
To smite with terror & with punishments
Those that are sick, like the Pharisees
Crucifying &,encompassing sea & land
For proselytes to tyranny & wrath,                
But to the Publicans & Harlots go!
Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace
For Hell is opend to heaven; thine eyes beheld
The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free."      
                                     
Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 56, (E 337)
"The Saviour mild & gentle bent over the corse of Death
Saying If ye will Believe your Brother shall rise again   

And first he found the Limit of Opacity & namd it Satan
In Albions bosom for in every human bosom these limits stand     
And next he found the Limit of Contraction & namd it Adam
While yet those beings were not born nor knew of good or Evil

Then wondrously the Starry Wheels felt the divine hand. Limit 
Was put to Eternal Death Los felt the Limit & saw
The Finger of God touch the Seventh furnace in terror            
And Los beheld the hand of God over his furnaces
Beneath the Deeps in dismal Darkness beneath immensity"

_________________________________

Mark 1
[39] And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
[40] And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean."
[41] Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean."
[42] And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

John 11
[38] Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
[39] Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
[40] Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
[41] Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
[42] And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
[43] And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
[44] And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

 

Heaven's Gate

First posted Nov 2009

Wikimedia Commons

Book of Thel

Plate 1

Among other things this abiding image provides a

link between Blake and Dylan 's Knocking on Heaven's Door.

Once again:
"I give you the end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate
Built in Jerusalem's wall."
Jeusalem (E 231)

What about the gate? Can you go in? go out?
The Arlington Tempera offers visual instruction
in the matter. From the beginning of time
there have been two passages: to and from
Heaven. The northern passage leads down into
the Sea of Time and Space; the southern passage
leads back up to Eternity. This is the crux of
Blake's myth, and of the Judeo-Chistian one as
well.

If you apply 'gate' to the concordance, you
will find 262 of them. Quite a few gates of
Hell! Two noteworthy gates are (1) at the little
poem, To Morning (E410):

"O holy virgin! clad in purest white,
Unlock heav's' golden gates, and issue forth;
Awake the dawn that sleeps in heaven; let light..."

And then Thel notably traversed the gate in
both directions. From the Vales of Thar (a
region in Heaven) Thel considered the subject
of mortal life, and decided to give it a whirl:
" The eternal gates' terrific porter lifted the
northern bar. Thel enter'd in & saw the
secrets of the land unknown."

But seeing the horrors of 'this vale of tears'
Thel screamed and "Fled back unhinder'd till
she came into the vales of Har."

From the Arlington Tempera you may notice a
maiden holding her bucket and making her way
upward against the stream. Like Thel she had
seen enough and refused mortality.

-----------------------------

"O Christ who holds the open gate,
O Christ who drives the furrow straight,
O Christ, the plough, 0 Christ, the laughter
Of holy white birds flying after,
Lo, all my heart’s field red and torn,
And Thou wilt bring the young green corn,
The young green corn divinely springing,
The young green corn forever singing;
And when the field is fresh and fair
Thy blessed feet shall glitter there,
And we will walk the weeded field,
And tell the golden harvest’s yield,
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ." 

Hymn by John Masefield. How Blakean can you get!

 

SOUL'S JOURNEY VIII

Central figures of Arlington Tempera 

From Myspace

First posted Apr 2012  

Kathleen Raine has much more to say about the Arlington Tempera from the perspective of one immersed in the classic literature. She traced the influences on Blake from the ancients on through the wisdom handed down through the ages which is known as the perennial philosophy. Because she was conversant with Blake's sources she was able to recognise both the minute detail and the complete design in Blake's symbolism.   

Quotes from Blake and Tradition:

Page 78
"Behind Odysseus, Athena's hand reaches to the lowest steps of the staircase that ascends to the sun's shining realm. Both godesses are pointing the way to the eternal world, though for the moment Odysseus sees neither of them - Leucothea by her own command, Athena because (as Homer tells) he has not yet recognized her. The body, like the soul, returns to eternity, the one as a dissolving cloud, the other as 'the true man.'"

Page 86 
"Porphyry's cave is the womb by which man enters life; but, seen otherwise, it is the grave in which he dies to eternity. However, for those who leave it by the southern gate, it is, conversely, the grave of this world, from which returning souls are born into the world of immortals." 

Page 93
"Homer speaks of the northern and southern entrances of the Cave of the Nymphs; and in explaining these Porphyry passes to astronomical symbolism...by the logic of astrological symbolism it follows that souls enter generation by the moon-governed gate of Cancer, since the moon is the ruler of generation and also of the waters. Conversely, souls leaving this world through the gate of Capricorn enter Saturn's golden country of eternity...These two entrances Blake faithfully depicted in the vital downward current of generation and the radiant staircase rising from the distant extremity of the cave into the golden world."

Page 96
"Blake is suggesting the contrasting states of life in this world as death in the other; or, in this case, the waking in the one as sleep in the other, for the symbolic meaning of sleep and death is the same: the lost vision becomes, in psychological terms, the 'unconscious.'" 

Page 97
"Job is the traveler who enters Experience, the state in which the divine in man sleeps, of dies; when the lost traveller returns, the God awakes. The contrasting states of sleep and waking, a death into life and a reawakening into eternity, form the very substance of Blake's thought."    
  
Just as the consciousness of Odysseus developed through the experiences of his travels, the consciousness of the soul is altered by its passage through materiality. The individual psyche is not static; it is given the opportunity to evolve. The process can be thought of as cyclical. The old is discarded in order that it may be replaced by the new. The awakening is a consequence of going to sleep. Entering into the feminine or projected (externalised) status provides the means of gaining experience. When a new level of development has been assimilated, the psyche returns to the unified wholeness called eternity. Although eternity may not be altered in its completeness by the return of the psyche, the patterns of expression are modified.     

Europe, Plate 3, (E 61)
A PROPHECY
"The deep of winter came; 
What time the secret child,
Descended thro' the orient gates of the eternal day:
War ceas'd, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes.

Then Enitharmon saw her sons & daughters rise around. 
Like pearly clouds they meet together in the crystal house:
And Los, possessor of the moon, joy'd in the peaceful night:
Thus speaking while his num'rous sons shook their bright fiery wings

Again the night is come 
That strong Urthona takes his rest, 
And Urizen unloos'd from chains 
Glows like a meteor in the distant north
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep."

Here is an earlier post based on the Arlington Tempera.

SOUL'S JOURNEY VII

Center portion of Arlington Tempera
 From Myspace

First posted Apr 2012 

In the Odyssey, when he returns to Ithaca, Odysseus has a additional task to accomplish. It is that of reuniting with his wife after a ten year absence without communication. He enlists the assistance of Athena and is eventually reunited with Penelope after their long separation. 

To Blake the reunion of the Zoa with his Emanation is an important step in achieving regeneration. Symptomatic of the disintegration of the whole man is the loss of the feminine. An example of the recovery of the emanation is reported in this post of Ahania's return to Urizen. The process is that of re-generation, not of simple return to former conditions.

The central figure in the Arlington Tempera may be simple in appearance but she represents a complex symbol because she is the reconciliation or culmination of multiple mythopoeic threads. If seen as Athena she is the divine assistance which aided Odysseus in his travels and brought about his reunion with his wife. Some may see as well as Athena (the intuition or imagination), Aphrodite (the emotions or source of life, born herself from the sea). 

In Blake's mythic construction she is primarily Jerusalem the spiritual connection of man to God. She is also Vala from whom the veil has been removed returning her to her unblemished beauty of eternity. She is Enitharmon whose work with Los wrought the bodies in which generation traversed the Sea of Time and Space. She is Enion who knew most acutely what it meant for spirit to be separated from matter.   

The emanations are necessary in the created world; in fact they are the expression outwardly of internal realities:  

Jerusalem, Plate 88, (E 246)
"For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations 
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity
How then can I ever again be united as Man with Man
While thou my Emanation refusest my Fibres of dominion.
When Souls mingle & join thro all the Fibres of Brotherhood
Can there be any secret joy on Earth greater than this?" 

The paradox of Blake's use of the female to connect heaven and earth, is that the separateness of the female is extinguished when man awakes to the unity of Eternity. The fragmentation, which in some accounts began with the appearance of the first female, ends with her disappearance:

Jerusalem, Plate 92, (E 252)
"So Los spoke. Enitharmon answerd in great terror in Lambeths Vale

The Poets Song draws to its period & Enitharmon is no more.
For if he be that Albion I can never weave him in my Looms
But when he touches the first fibrous thread, like filmy dew 
My Looms will be no more & I annihilate vanish for ever
Then thou wilt Create another Female according to thy Will.

Los answerd swift as the shuttle of gold. Sexes must vanish & cease
To be, when Albion arises from his dread repose O lovely Enitharmon:
When all their Crimes, their Punishments their Accusations of Sin: 
All their Jealousies Revenges. Murders. hidings of Cruelty in Deceit
Appear only in the Outward Spheres of Visionary Space and Time.
In the shadows of Possibility by Mutual Forgiveness forevermore
And in the Vision & in the Prophecy, that we may Foresee & Avoid
The terrors of Creation & Redemption & Judgment."