THE PRINTER WHO TALKED TO ANGELS!
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William Blake has been described as “one of the strangest figures in the history of British art and literature ...” (Roberts, p82) – and that is probably an under-statement !
For this printer – and printer he
was! – not only wrote his own books and illustrated them and printed them and
bound them, but at the age of four he saw God with his forehead pressed against
the outside of his bedroom window.
And later in his childhood he would converse with angels in the
treetops ... “their wings gleamed
among the leaves like stars” ... at least, so he told his puzzled father.
Mrs Blake, however, belonged to a
strange religious cult founded by Lodowick Muggleton, a tailor, in the
mid-seventeenth century. It was
February 16 1652, to be precise, that
this self appointed ‘prophet’ announced his Divine mission. (Reynolds, p116)
How any sect known as the
‘Muggletonians’ could survive causes one to shake the head in disbelief. But odder still was their off-beat teachings
that “God was five feet tall and that he lived in a small room six miles into
the sky”. (Welbourne, p11)
It was now a century later. William Blake had been born , in London, on
November 28: 1757 ... but with a mother still enamoured by the
teaching of this sect, and imbibing
her child with such strange
theology as he dandled upon her
knee, it is little wonder he ‘saw’ the
things he thought he did.
Moreover, William Blake was home-schooled. The other four children in the family seemed
to have adjusted to the realities of this world. But not William. Until
his dying day he seemed to be living in heavenly places ... talking in his
studio to – he believed – spirits of those departed from their earthly
existence.
It was hoped that he would follow
in his father’s drapery trade ... but measuring ribbons and slicing material
was not for him. Instead, James Blake soon discovered that his son had a talent
for artwork “on the back of shop bills, and the counter was covered with
sketches”. (Golding, p936)
So this strange child was, at the
age of 14, wisely apprenticed to James Basire, an eminent engraver. To escape the taunts of the other lads, his
employer sent William to Westminster Abbey ... and there, “making drawings of
the monuments of the dead ... was like
paradise to this dreaming boy” (Mee, p41).
One writer suggests that Blake was present when the body of King Edward
I. was exhumed, ...it was certainly
during that particular era...
and such an event would have intensified his mystical outlook.
Eventually he was of age and skill
to open his own engraving business. And
old enough to fall in love. But Polly
Wood laughed at his proposal and William was left on the brink of despair.
What follows is one of those
historic love-stories ... his meeting with Catherine Boucher, an instant
attraction between them ... and a marriage bond with which few could
compare. A strange couple, indeed.
On the one hand this twenty-five
year old, other-worldly engraver who
listened to angels singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the city streets of London,
and conversed with Old Testament prophets in Hyde Park. And bursting with
mystical enthusiasm he began to put
these things on paper that the world
might know what he had seen and heard.
And Catherine. There she was – bedazzled by her strange
husband, quite incapable of understanding his poetry, bewildered as they walked
hand in hand ... whilst he talked “with angels and archangels and all the
company of the heavenly host” (Boreham, p123).
She was illiterate when they
wed. But he taught her to read and
write. And colour. And later, when he was printing his own
books, it was his “perfect wife” (as Swinburne called her), this “incomparable
Kate” (as Mee describes her . p. 44) ,
who coloured the engravings and stitched the covers.
Swedenborgianism
Blake also came under the spell of
Emmanuel Swedenborg – a famous Swedish scientist who, at the age of 55, turned
his attention away from the laboratory to the world of ethereal fantasy.
(Ousby, p98 ) For the next thirty years
his visions and dreams were written down, thus becoming ‘Scripture’ for the ‘Church of the New
Jerusalem’. Blake did not go along fully with Swedenborg’s teachings, but
acknowledged their influence upon his thinking.
He
became a personal friend of Thomas Paine, an English born political
philosopher who spent much of his time in America ridiculing Christianity and the Bible. Whilst Blake “deplored”
Paine’s religious views ... both were in complete sympathy with the French Revolution.
As for England’s literary
circle....the world of Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Burke and
Garrick and other notables of the era... in their company Blake found no
place. After a short acquaintance they
turned their backs upon this curious
fellow.
But judge them not too harshly. It is still on record how Blake
addressed a certain lady who was seated
next to him at a friend’s house, “ Did you ever see a fairy’s funeral, madam? I
have, but not before last night. I saw
a procession of creatures of the size and colour of green and gray grasshoppers
bearing a body laid out on a roseleaf, which they buried with songs and then
disappeared.” ( Hammerton. P. 260) The good lady’s reaction is not recorded,
but one can understand Johnson’s
sophisticated literary circle desirous of a more stimulating
conversation.
At the age of 27 William Blake set up his own print shop. It was a
matter of necessity. For reasons which he probably did not comprehend,
publishers looked at him with a dubious
eye. So in 1787, at 28 Poland Street, Leicester Fields, he and his good wife
tackled the printing art together. The interesting thing is that he drew and
engraved each page ... both text and illustrations ... very much in the manner
of medieval blocks. Dearest Catherine, ever faithful, laboured beside him.....
loving him, inspiring him, and trying to understand him.
The method used in his etching was revealed to him in a dream, so he claimed, by his deceased brother, Robert. (Binns,
pp250-1). “It enabled him to reproduce his page complete, text and design, in
some impervious liquid in reverse upon a copper plate, and then cause the rest
of the plate to be bitten away in a bath of acid.” ( Hammerton. p. 260) An old
screw-press was used for the actual printing. But today’s scholars who write
volumes on the printing art are unanimous as they testify to the beauty of Blake’s work.
“His typographical work is of the
highest order, but it is the achievement of a solitary genius and is inimitable
as his poetry” (Steinberg, p165).
“William Blake was an artisan in
the truest sense ... Each print is a
unique work of art” (Internet).
His Poetry.
Among his best-known poems is : “Jerusalem” -
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains
green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures
seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
Some readers may recall being
called upon to analyze the following poem during their school days :
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Why he spelt “Tiger” as “Tyger” is
something to ask your English teacher!)
Much of his poetry is based on a
mythology of his own devising ... filled with complex and obscure
symbolism. Or so the literary critics
tells us. Complex, yes! Symbolic ...
who knows? Perhaps it was simply his
feverish imagination running riot. It is probably true to say that half a dozen
“scholars” will read into his writings half a dozen different interpretations.
As one writer confesses – “it is
certain that large tracts of his writing will remain in impenetrable obscurity”
(Roberts, p. 84).
His “Book of Urizen” (1794), for
example, depicts his own view of Creation – Urizen being a ‘tyrant god’ who
made a “willful and tragic mistake”.
Blake’s copper-plate engravings -
which are “inextricably linked” to his poetry and for which he is justly famous – show this
old, bearded and wrinkled god with measuring instruments in hand. As our mystical engraver grew older, so
did his illustrations become “more diabolical.
Goblins, sea-serpents, huge fishes eating dead bodies, angels pouring
out the last plagues, the fires of hell and similar scenes found their way into
colour” (Golding, p939). ).
Unrecognised
During his lifetime his books sold slowly. So slowly that at the time of his death (August 12, 1826), he and
his beloved Catherine were living in “a
few poor rooms in London” (Bungey, p. 29).And he was buried in an unmarked
grave in Bunhill Fields, East London.
Today, however, a volume from
Blake’s press is worth thousands of dollars.
And despite the fact that he was virtually “ignored for over two centuries ... (William Blake) is now
obligatory reading on every College curriculum” (Manguel, p23. )
The National Gallery in Melbourne, Victoria, exhibited some of his art from April 28 to June 30, 1999. It has been
said that Blake’s print of “The
Ancient of Days” is an extraordinary piece of work “that might have come from
the hand of Michaelangelo.” ( Mee. p. 44)
Was William Blake mad? Some writers have suggested that such was
the case. Wordsworth wrote, “There is
no doubt that this poor man was mad ...” and John Ruskin spoke of Blake’s work
as “diseased and wild”. Henry Robinson,
who knew Blake personally, describes him as “this insane man of genius”
(Bottrall, p36).
Mad? Or was it, as another has
suggested, that he was the sane one,
and those of us who only meditate upon the things of this world ... with no comprehension or interest of things beyond
... are really the insane?
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“500 Years of Printing” by S.
Steinberg, Faber & Faber, 1959. 286
pp.
“An Introduction to Historical
Bibliography” by N. Binns, Pub. By Association of Assistant Librarians, 1962. 388 pp.
“A History of Reading” by A.
Manguel, Flamingo Pub., 1997. 172 pp.
“Cavalcade of History” by C.
Golding, Hutchinson & Co (No Date).
1024 pp.
“1,000 Heroes” Edited by A. Mee. Vol. 1, Amalgamated Press
(No Date). 964 pp.
“The Jesus of Poets and Prophets”
by Dr R. Roberts, S.C.M. Press, 1920.
213 pp.
“William Blake” Edited by M.
Bottrall, Macmillan, 1970. 245 pp.
“William Blake” Edited by P.
Butter, Everyman, 1996. 118 pp.
“Arrows of Desire” by F.W. Boreham,
Epworth Press, 1951. 143 pp.
“This England” Magazine. Article by M. Bungey, Spring, 1985.
“Cambridge Guide to English
Literature” Edited by I. Ousby, Guild Pub.
1988
“English Sects” by A. Reynolds, Mowbray, 1921. 244 pp.
“Welbourne’s Dictionary” Published by J. Carr (No Date)
18 pp.
Concise Universal
Biography....edited by J. Hammerton.
Educational Book Co. ( No date.)
Internet –
<http://www.vu.union.edu/~blake/man.html>
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