William Blake

William Blake, The Soul Hovering over the Body Reluctantly Parting with Life  c.1805

This is a sketch for a design which Blake made for an edition of Robert Blair’s poem The Grave. This was published in 1808. Against Blake's wishes the illustrations to the book, shown in a display case in the centre of the room, were engraved after Blake’s designs by Luigi Schiavonetti.

In the engraving the figure of the hovering soul is the same as in this drawing. However, the print shows the dying man, who has led such a self-indulgent life, lying on his back without the lyre and wreath.

Gallery label, September 2004

William Blake, The Agony in the Garden  c.1799–1800

This illustrates lines from St Luke's Gospel, although the inclusion of the sleeping disciples also refers to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Christ is shown praying in the Garden of Gethsemene just before his betrayal by Judas and his arrest: And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. One of Blake's patrons described him as 'a most fervent admirer of the Bible, and intimately acquainted with its beauties.'

Gallery label, October 2001

William Blake, Dante and Virgil Penetrating the Forest  1824–7

Blake produced one hundred and two watercolours illustrating Dante's poem The Divine Comedy. He drew and painted them in a large volume, but they are now separately mounted. They show varying stages of completion. This work is unfinished; the pencil lines of his first sketch remain clearly visible.

Blake added grey shadows in carbon black pigment on top of the colours he had used first. He strengthened some of the drawing with pen and ink over the colour. Both the blue pigment and the mixed green shades contain indigo. This lowers the contrast between them.

Gallery label, September 2004

William Blake, Homer and the Ancient Poets  1824–7

This is one of Blake's illustrations to The Divine Comedy by the medieval poet Dante. Blake used a new English translation of the poem which was seen as a major contribution to our national literature. Blake's ambitious response to the text was also informed by nationalism. Dante describes an imagined pilgrimage, guided by the poet Virgil, through Hell and Purgatory to Paradise. Here Dante and Virgil look down into Limbo, where they see Homer, holding a sword, and other poets. Homer celebrated the Trojan war; Blake, opposed to war, described the Greek and Roman poets as 'slaves of the sword'.

Gallery label, October 2001

William Blake, Pity  c.1795

This image is taken from Macbeth: ‘pity, like a naked newborn babe / Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim horsed / Upon the sightless couriers of the air’. Blake draws on popularly-held associations between a fair complexion and moral purity. These connections are also made by Lavater, who writes that ‘the grey is the tenderest of horses, and, we may here add, that people with light hair, if not effeminate, are yet, it is well known, of tender formation and constitution’. Blake’s interest in the characters of different horses can also be seen in his Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, hanging nearby.

Gallery label, March 2011

attributed to John Linnell, The Man who Built the Pyramids (after William Blake)  c.1825

Linnell made a number of replicas of Blake's 'Visionary Heads'. Apparently he intended to engrave them for Varley's projected four-part 'Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy'. In fact only one part of the treatise was ever published, in 1828. However the inscription on this drawing, '15 Degrees of Cancer ascending', may well indicate that it was intended as one of the engraved plates in that work. As well as the main figure, the sheet contains a drawing of the architect's mouth open instead of shut (as in 'The Head of a Ghost of a Flea'), a sketch of the 'Egyptian' interior in which Blake saw him in his vision, and an architect's portfolio inscribed with hieroglyphics.

Gallery label, September 2004

William Blake, Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils  c.1826

The biblical ‘Book of Job’ addresses the existence of evil and suffering in a world where a loving, all-powerful God exists. It has been described as ‘the most profound and literary work of the entire Old Testament’.

In ‘Job’, God and Satan discuss the limits of human faith and endurance. God lets Satan force Job to undergo extreme trials and tribulations, including the destruction of his family. Despite this, as God predicted, Job’s faith remains unshaken and he is rewarded by God with the restoration of his health, wealth and family. Here Blake shows Satan torturing Job with boils.

From The Holy Bible (King James version), Book of Job, Chapter II, 3-10

3. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.4. And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.5. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.6. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.8. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.9. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.10. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Gallery label, March 2010

William Blake, The Rock Sculptured with the Recovery of the Ark and the Annunciation  1824–7

Blake thought and wrote of Jerusalem as a city symbolising peace and liberty. He also illustrated events in its history. Here Dante and Virgil are climbing the Mount of Purgatory, described by Dante in canto 10 of Purgatory in his Divine Comedy.

A scene carved in the rock on the left shows the return of the ark of the sacred covenant to Jerusalem. King David dances in front of this ark as it enters the city. Its arrival signalled the liberation of the Jews from the Philistines. Elsewhere, Blake compared the ark to a ‘Dove of Peace’.

Gallery label, December 2004

William Blake, Newton  1795–c.1805

In this work Blake portrays a young and muscular Isaac Newton, rather than the older figure of popular imagination. He is crouched naked on a rock covered with algae, apparently at the bottom of the sea. His attention is focused on a diagram which he draws with a compass. Blake was critical of Newton’s reductive, scientific approach and so shows him merely following the rules of his compass, blind to the colourful rocks behind him.

Gallery label, October 2018

William Blake, The Good Farmer, Probably the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Verso: Rough Sketch of Two or Three Figures in a Landscape  c.1780–5

This is one of a group of seven sketches from the 1780s by Blake which all appear to illustrate the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (weeds) from St Matthew's Gospel. Jesus explained: The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. This linking of the harvest with the Last Judgement is important in the work of both Blake and Samuel Palmer.

Gallery label, April 2001

William Blake, Virgil Girding Dante’s Brow with a Rush  1824–7

William Blake, The Simoniac Pope  1824–7

In Hell, Dante and Virgil meet those guilty of simony (buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment). Like all simoniacs, Pope Nicholas III is punished by being suspended head downwards in a well of fire.

The paper is watermarked ‘W ELGAR 1794’, the year it was produced. It was then bound into book form. The parallel lines in the paper show it is ‘laid’. This means it has more texture than Blake generally used, but the weight of the book would have flattened it. The two sides of the paper have different textures: Blake used both sides for his illustrations.

Gallery label, September 2004

William Blake, Age Teaching Youth  c.1785–90

The image of a seated adult with children or youths reading occurs in a number of Blake's works from the 1780s, including the title page to Songs of Innocence.

It has been suggested that the leaf and tendril motif on the dress of the youth in the foreground (who seems to be drawing) identifies him as representative of a mind limited to nature and its imitation. The old man might represent the law, which is contradicted by the girl who, gesturing heavenwards towards the infinite, might represent imagination.

Gallery label, September 2004

William Blake, The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth  ?1805

The subject of this picture is the prime minister, William Pitt. Blake showed this work in his exhibition in 1809, describing Pitt as ‘that Angel who, pleased to perform the Almighty’s orders, rides on the whirlwind, directing the storms of war.’

Pitt had led Britain into war against France after the 1789 Revolution. Blake saw him as one ‘ordering the Reaper to reap the Vine of the Earth, and the Plowman to plow up the Cities and Towers’. The words reflect Blake’s apocalyptic vision of war. The huge beast, Behemoth, is under Pitt and at his command.

Gallery label, December 2004

William Blake, Preliminary Sketch for ‘Christ Girding Himself with Strength’. Verso: Standing Figure with One Arm Raised  c.1805, c.1805–10