All Things William Blake

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‘Nebuchadnezzar’

Colour print finished in ink and watercolor.

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“Hand in hand, with fairy grace,

Will we sing, and bless this place.”

Illustration of Titania's instruction to her fairy train in the last scene of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

c. 1784

Watercolour and graphite on paper

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“Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Car”

Illustration to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’

c. 1824-7

At the end of The Divine Comedy, Dante is guided through Heaven by Beatrice, his ideal woman. Here she is surrounded by the four apostles, depicted as embodiments of the symbolic animals with which they are traditionally associated. Luke resembles an ox, a creature Lavater described as severe and simple, while Mark appears as a lion, which Lavater saw as strong and bold. John has the face of an eagle, which, according to Lavater, means he ‘must be a brave man’. Matthew is shown as a man with idealised, Christ-like features that seem to echo those of Beatrice.

Ink and watercolour on paper

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"The Temptation and Fall of Eve,"

Illustration to Milton's Paradise Lost, 1808

Pen and watercolor on paper

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“The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (formerly called ‘Hecate’)” c.1795

Enitharmon is a character in Blake’s mythology. In her ‘night of joy’ she sets out her false religion.

Colour print, ink, tempera and watercolour on paper

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“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: infinite For man has closed himself up till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake

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Satan Exulting over Eve, 1795

Pen, graphite, watercolor, ink

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Illustration to Dante's Divine Comedy, 1795

Etching, watercolor, ink

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The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With Sun

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William Blake's life mask

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“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown. And, in between, there are doors.”

William Blake (via libraryfortress)

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streetsofcalcutta:

i often worry that William Blake’s work will be utterly undervalued by future generations; the man, the maverick deserves so much more

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Life mask of William Blake.

"In September 1823, he let the sculptor James Deville immerse his head in plaster, with only a straw to breath through as it solidified.

Before photography, masks from moulds of living and recently dead faces were the most accurate way of preserving someone's appearance. Deville probably learned the technique from his master, the sculptor Joseph Nollekens. Deville practised phrenology - reading character from the size and shape of the skull, as devised by J Spurzheim. Blake seems to have read Spurzheim, too. His drawing of the man who taught him painting in his dreams (c. 1819-20) resembles a phrenology diagram. Deville built up a collection of casts and wished to include Blake's "as representative of the imaginative faculty". Because of phrenology, we have a quasi-photographic image of an artist who has become infinitely more famous since his death."

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To Winter

From Blake's Poetical Sketches:

TO WINTER. O WINTER ! bar thine adamantine doors : The North is thine ; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep Rides heavy; his storms are unchained, sheathed In ribbed steel ; I dare not lift mine eyes ; For he hath reared his sceptre o'er the world. Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks: He withers all in silence, and in his hand Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life. He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st With storms ! till heaven smiles, and the monster Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.