WILLIAM BLAKE at the TATE BRITAIN on the 27th of January 2020
WILLIAM BLAKE at
the TATE BRITAIN on the 27th of January 2020
William Blake seems a necessary antidote
to this era of Brexit, Climate Change and renewed crisis in international
politics and affairs. Blake too lived in
such a time, when it seemed that cataclysmic, transformative forces were
re-shaping the world. Although his art
seldomly references the external world, many of his earth-shattering images
echo the tumult that surrounded him. He produced images like Albion Rose
(1793) that herald the dawning of a new age of hope, optimism and resolution
summed up in his dictum: ‘If the doors of perception are cleansed everything
would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)
Blake was born in London in 1757. He lived at a time when two great
philosophies dominated society, the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Blake’s work bears the imprint of both. The Enlightenment sought to challenge the grip
on society of superstition, religion and mysticism in order to re-shape it with
the tools of free enquiry, rational thought and liberal values. Blake endorsed some aspects of the
Enlightenment but rejected others. For
instance, in his painting Newton (1806), the scientist does geometry and
mathematics in an alien landscape which appears to be the bottom of the sea,
ignoring the transcendental beauty that surrounds him. Blake’s deeply unorthodox Christian values
meant that the impact of the Enlightenment was to be tempered with a belief in
the creativity of the artist as a metaphor for Creation. Creation could not be simply reduced to a set
of algebraic equations, it was spiritual, emotional, hardly an intellectual
event at all.
Blake’s life coincided with two great
events, heralded at the time as symbolic of a new beginning for mankind, the
French Revolution and the American Revolution.
Blake welcomed the American Revolution as a great force for human
liberation demonstrating that the old, despotic forces of Imperialism,
Colonialism and subjugation could be challenged successfully. He fashioned a poem about it, America a
Prophecy, which he also illustrated.
America was not the first work that Blake illustrated, the first of
these works known today as the Continental Prophecies, was Tiriel
(1789). Blake seems to intimate an art
form like film, strongly visual yet also literate combining his magnificent
images, obscure yet hallucinatic verses counterpointed with strongly dramatic
hints, hues and tones. Unsurprisingly,
Blake’s poetry is referenced in a number of films, from Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner
(where lines from Blake’s America are mis-quoted: ‘Fiery the angels fell
and as they fell deep thunder rolled around their shores’, in the original the
angels ‘rose’ but ‘fell’ seems more apocalyptic, satanic and Miltonic). Chariots of Fire (1981) implies
Blake’s Jerusalem but fails to develop the connection. Perhaps Blade Runner (1982) comes
closer to Blake’s vision, as the replicants symbolise fallen angels, bereft of
empathy yet suffused with an awareness of that loss. The replicant Roy is the most Blakeian
creation in cinematic culture, monstrous and demonic yet yearning for a human
soul. Blake’s work is exploited rather
than referenced in films like Red Dragon (2002) where the serial killer
Francis Dolarhyde has Blake’s work The Great Red Dragon and the Woman
Clothed in Sun tattooed on his back.
Such films imply the ways in which Blake’s work has been misunderstood,
particularly by Blake’s contemporaries, many of whom viewed Blake as mad. Blake’s technique, whether in painting or in
verse, is always sure footed even if his subject matter is idiosyncratic,
obscure and often bereft of context.
Blake’s productivity and creativity, however, is without doubt and
neither of these qualities is viewed in sufferers from mental illness.
The exhibition attempts to connect Blake
to his original trade as a reproductive engraver. Engraving was the basis of the work Blake did
and the trade gave him an income throughout his life. He was also employed to design as well as
engrave and from 1784 ran his own small print publishing business. Blake favoured the artistic inspiration of
his painting and poetry and disliked the limitations of commercial work. He also invented a new form of printmaking
known as ‘relief etching’ around 1788 although the processes involved are still
unknown. This allowed him to print in
colour and combine texts and images.
‘Relief etching’ was the basis of the visionary books he sought to
publish, works that concerned themselves with the major issues of the day, from
the slave trade to the French revolution.
The obscurity of Blake’s expression meant that they failed to attract
the attention of the authorities.
Indeed, very few people saw Blake’s prophetic books although the
obscurity might have been a tacit acknowledgement of the strength of the censor
in an era which retained an idea in law of ‘seditious libel’. This law condemned the printing of a text
that incited political rebellion and revolution. To print such work was illegal in Blake’s
day.
The exhibition also examines Blake’s
patrons which included the support of family and friends like John Flaxman,
Thomas Stothard and George Cumberland.
Wealthier clients included Thomas Butts, a senior civil servant who
ultimately owned up to 200 of Blake’s works and the wealthy poet William
Hayley. Blake moved to Sussex with his
wife Catherine in 1800-3 in order to work for Hayley. The work that Blake completed for these
patrons included illustrations of the Bible, Milton and Shakespeare. Eventually Blake returned to London from
Sussex, having fallen out with Hayley.
Blake’s attempt to move to the provinces failed and he returned to the
poverty and chaos of London.
Blake also experienced failure and
poverty, for instance, the independent exhibition of his own work which he
organised in 1809 in Broad Street, Soho, was a disaster. He exhibited for the last time in 1812 and
then withdrew from the public arena for some years. The exhibition of 1809 is reproduced in Room
4 as well as a projection showing his paintings at the gigantic scale that he
wished for. Surprisingly, most of
Blake’s paintings are of modest size indicating the financial limitations he
endured.
The last ten years of Blake’s life
indicated a great rise in the artist’s creativity after years of failure and
defeat. Through his new-found friends
John Linnell, Samuel Palmer and John Varley, Blake began to find new employment
and recognition. He finished his last
illuminated book, Jerusalem, in 1820 and initiated, for Linnell, the
incredible series of watercolours illustrating Dante’s Divine Comedy. To see these last works alone is worth the
admission price. Discovering or
re-discovering William Blake is a matter of urgency, getting down to the Tate
Britain to discover this exhibition, an obvious task.
Paul Murphy, Tate Britain, January 2020
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