Continuing my theme of William Blake, (1757-1827) in this reflection I will be examining some of the influences to which Blake was subject. Blake was a dissenter (non-conformist) and although his paintings and poems were deeply spiritual and religious, they were not related to any particular category.
Blake lived through a period of great political fervour. Throughout the early part of his life, Britain was, sporadically, at war with France, hostilities ending finally at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In the late 1700’s there was revolution in France with the overthrowing of the French Monarchy, followed by the Reign of Terror initiated by Robespierre, with some semblance of order only being established by Napoleon in 1799. In Britain at this time there was a major political and religious force in Millenarianism, (the anticipation that Christ will establish a 1000 year rule – the millennium – before the Last Judgement) the influence of which lasted well into the 19th Century. (Fulford,2002;1,2). Within Christianity in Britain, the Dissenters became, following Wesley et al, an ever increasing movement, finally gaining official acceptance in the Act for the Relief of Dissenters (1779). (Moorman,1980;312). The Dissenters were a major influence on Blake, with both of his parents being supporters of that movement, as well as being radical in their political outlook. (Ackroyd,199;6).
In Art, Literature and Music, there was the transition from Classicism to Romanticism with Blake’s lifetime contemporaries with such well known figures as Reynolds and David (classical) and Delacroix and Turner (romantic), Pope and Goldsmith (classical), Wordsworth and Coleridge (romantic), (Mozart and Haydn (classical), Beethoven and Schubert (romantic).
In Philosophy (which at this time included science, for the name scientist was only introduced in the Victorian era (Alexander,2001;11)) this period continued that known as the Age of Reason which, perhaps, could be said to have begun with Descartes (“The father of Modern Philosophy” – 1596-1650) and emphasised by Newton (1642-1727), both of whose influence has extended through to the twenty first century. Philosophers who lived at the time of Blake included Rousseau, Kant and Hegel to mention just three.
This week I will confine myself to consideration of those active in the world of the visual arts. So far as painters, engravers etc. are concerned the Romantic period in the UK was characterised by two trends. First there was a large grouping of artists who were inspired by the English (and to a lesser extent Scottish) countryside. They mostly seemed to take a rather idealistic view of the countryside omitting to show the tremendous hardship that was endured by many of those who had no alternative but to work on the land. It was left to the painters of the later Victorian period to show the extent of the drudgery involved. Secondly, there was another group who were inclined towards the supernatural and the fantastic and who were inspired by many of the literary works around at the time – Shakespeare, the Bible, the poems of John Milton and the Visions of Dante, to mention four of the more significant. (Brion,1966;47)
Artists of the period contemporary with Blake include some of Britain’s greatest – e.g. Gainsborough, Reynolds, Constable, Crome, Cotman, and Turner who for most of their work would fall into the first category. It is interesting to note that Turner who began his artistic career by being apprenticed to an engraver is the only member of this group whose work whilst often being of landscapes and seascapes was so impressionistic and at times mysterious that it could almost be said to be supernatural.
I have not come across any evidence that Blake and Turner actually met but both were meted out with much criticism for their visionary works and were, by some, regarded as suffering from a form of madness. From other parts of Europe, the great artists of this period would include Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix and Goya.
In order to keep this reflection within bounds, I shall confine my remaining comments on contemporary artists to those of the second group which, of course, includes Blake himself. Other artists of significance in consideration of Blake in this group would include Fuseli, Flaxman, Carstens, and Varley. Professor Peter Tomory would add to this list Barry, Brown, Jeffreys, Mortimer, Romney and Runciman, all of whom with Blake, Fuseli and Flaxman were described as exhibitors of Poetic Painting. This term is explained by Reynolds – “Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterize History; but the very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narration, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination.” (Tomory, quoting Reynolds, 1979;11.)
In examining some of the artists of this second group, I shall begin with Fuseli. He was born Johann Heinrich Fussli in Zurich, was a brilliant linguist, speaking six languages and, at the virtual insistence of his father was ordained in the Zwinglian Church. (Zwingli was very roughly the Swiss equivalent to the German Luther or French/Swiss Calvin.) Fussli studied classical literature – in particular Shakespeare, Milton and Dante – and after about 1780 – he settled in London, changed his name to Henry Fuseli and became a close associate of Blake. In particular, he shared Blake’s concern for the abolition of slavery. Whilst bearing some similarity to the style of Blake, (e.g. Allegory of Vanity or Isis from Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris, (Keay,1974:79 and 65) he was a Poetic Painter with his work mainly centred around the literature that he had read as a younger man. Many of his paintings view the subjects from below, as though on a stage, perhaps reflecting his great love of the theatre. Whilst Fuseli was self taught, was aggressive and intolerant of fools and, sometimes, his peers, he nonetheless ended his career as Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy (Keay,1974;7), having replaced James Barry (Tomory,1979;73).
James Barry was 16 years older than Blake and one of the teachers at the Academy with whom he related well. Blake regarded Barry as one the most important English painters of the time, “having a marked effect upon Blake’s understanding of the heroic style….as if neoclassicism had been irradiated by the wild energy of his imagination” (Ackroyd,1995;68) Barry could not have been an easy person with whom to relate as he had disagreements with both Reynolds (no doubt a plus point as far as Blake was concerned) and Fuseli. It should be noted however that Fuseli regarded Barry as an artist of “great genius neglected by the public” (Tomory quoting Fuseli,1979;75).
Before summarising some of the characteristics of the other Poetic Painters mentioned above, I should highlight some of Blake’s fellow students who had a significant influence. First of all I should mention Thomas Stothard – two years ahead of Blake and already establishing himself as a professional artist in the “historical painter” mode. (Ackroyd,1995;71) In the event, Stothard became primarily an illustrator. (Lister,1973;113-4) Whilst Stothard and Blake would probably have influenced each other through their work, perhaps the more significant result of their coming together is the introduction that occurred when Stothard introduced Flaxman to Blake. I shall have more to write about Flaxman later on but staying for the moment with Blake’s fellow students, another very important influence and, possibly, friend was James Gillray. Gillray had the same Dissenter background as Blake and enjoyed the “gift of extending reality through fantasy” – an ability that was put to good use in the creation of political cartoons – Smelling a Rat, being a typical example. (Vaughan,1995;85)
Another very clever cartoon is Doublures of Characters (Bindman,1982;25) where with very subtle changes the true character of various politicians was brought out to devastating effect. Skilful though these cartoons are, it is, I believe, probable that the etchings such as The Prophet of the Hebrews (Bindman,1982;13) and Presages of the Millennium (Bindman,1982;123) were much more influential upon Blake, involving as they do, the politics with which Blake was in sympathy and a similar style of draughtsmanship.
As I mentioned above, John Flaxman – a close associate of Fuseli and Barry, was an important contemporary of Blake who was a strong support and influence on Blake. (Bindman,1982;143). Whilst Flaxman was primarily a sculptor, he was a “poetic painter” producing a number of etchings depicting scenes from Aeschylus, Homer, and Dante.(Tomory,1979;96-102) and I suspect that the influence may not have been wholly one way.
Carstens was a German artist who was probably overshadowed by Fuseli and Blake, but nonetheless worked very much in the same vein. He had the same attitude to the Academy as Blake – “I belong to Humanity, not to the Academy of Berlin” (Vaughan quoting Carstens,1995;71) Carstens work Night with her Children, Sleep and Death –seems to me to be very Blakian in style and subject matter.
Coming now to some younger artists who were influenced by Blake in his later years we have Samuel Palmer who has become the most well known of a small group of artists, including Calvert and Richmond, who surrounded and admired Blake in his later years. They were known as the Ancients – indicating “their rejection of modern values in art and society.” ( Wilcox,2005;18) John Linnell – a fellow artist, friend and patron of Blake – was Palmer’s advisor in his formative years, encouraging him away from the strict formality of the academy to penetrate beyond “style, surface and structure to discover the soul of a landscape” (Wilcox,2005;10) Linnell introduced Palmer to Blake in 1824 and their friendship developed from then.
I cannot leave this section without just mentioning two contemporary artists of a different mould from Blake – Ingres and Goya – but who nevertheless have some striking parallel interpretations
Ingres was a French painter (23 years younger than Blake) who was particularly known for being an upholder of classicism. (Lister,1973:6) However, if we examine his Dream of Ossian (Ossian was a fictional Gaelic Bard whose sagas were published in 1762/3 (Vaughan,1995;75)) there is surely a reference to the style of Blake. Goya, arguably one of the greatest painters of his age considered, like Blake, that there were great changes about to occur in the world, but whereas Blake was apocalyptic, Goya believed that the New Jerusalem could be achieved here on earth. Both were concerned to delineate Good and Evil. It is doubtful that they were aware of each other’s work; possibly the political upheavals in Europe were sufficient in themselves to inspire these two great artists to promote messages of some similarity.
Blake would have been the first to admit that he was not a good business man and he needed patrons in order to succeed. In the early days, just after his marriage to Catherine Boucher, he set up a printing shop with his fellow apprentice James Parker, and presumably with the contacts he had made during his apprenticeship with James Basire ran a moderately successful business. Another important engraver contact at the time would have been William Sharp. (Eaves,2003;22-3)
After early success led to a just-about adequate income, it seems that Blake found it more and more difficult to maintain an income when he started to become more and more creative in his artistic endeavours. As mentioned, Blake was not a good business man and it is unfortunate that his wife Catherine who was to remain his very loyal supporter and assistant throughout his life, was unable to become his business manager; (150 years or so would have to elapse before women could support their husbands this way.) A very significant commission from Thomas Butts to produce 50 frescos from the Bible, subsequently followed by an order to produce 100 watercolours must have been a lifeline. William Hayley also became particularly important at this time – Hayley was the cause of the Blake’s living in West Sussex for a period – mainly to work with Hayley, illustrating several of his books. (Eaves,2003;27) In 1818 fellow artist John Linnell gave him some work but more importantly introduced him to a new circle of influence – Linnell even managed to introduce Blake to John Constable. Direct commissions from Linnell included the request for a series of engravings on the Book of Job. Through his work for Linnell and also for Robert Cromek (with whom he had a rather tempestuous relationship), Blake achieved a certain fame and came to the attention of a younger group of artists, including Samuel Palmer – the Ancients to whom I have referred above.(Eaves,2003;33) This very happy period in Blake’s later life was followed by a sad period just before his death when, near to penury and with failing health he was supported by Charles Tulk (who had been introduced to him by Flaxman), Linnell (commission to produce 100 drawings illustrating Dante which remained unfinished) and George Cumberland whose commission, to produce a calling card design proved to be his last.
Blake is renowned primarily as engraver, poet, mystic and prophet and he was also no mean musician. Just after his marriage Blake met the Reverend Anthony Mathew and his wife Harriet, and it was at her conversaziones that Blake’s musical ability came to light. When he was with Hayley at Felpham, he even described himself inter alia as musician. (Bentley,2001;210) and was, it seems, popular as a musician at that time (Bentley, 2001;228). After Felpham, upon his return to London, Blake lived in an area possibly frequented by musicians (Bentley quoting Dickens,2001;326). It should be remembered that at this time the centre of the musical world lay in mainland Europe – particularly based in Vienna or Paris – and it was here that the composers that I mentioned above all practised. So far as England, Scotland and Wales were concerned “The early part of the nineteenth century was an undistinguished period in English music” (Scholes,1970;331a) – I think the only composer of note at this time was the Irishman Field, whose nocturnes were said to be the inspiration of Chopin’s more widely known piano pieces in that genre.
I will begin to bring this article towards a conclusion by considering the mystics of the time; clearly Blake was influenced by Boehme and Swedenborg but these were not his contemporaries. It is probably amongst the Swedenborgians that the contemporary mystics may be found. One of these, an acquaintance of Blake was probably Philippe De Loutherbourg, the painter who was also a Freemason, a practicing mesmerist or magnetic healer and whose house “was crowded on ‘healing days’ with those searching for a cure”.(Ackroyd,1995;102). Immediately after his marriage Blake and his wife joined the (Swedenborgian) New Church. (It should be emphasised that Swedenborg did not found any particular church or sect – it was his followers who founded the New Church in 1788 – for the members of the Society for promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem (in the Revelation). (Thorne,1982;1239a and Sigstedt,1981;439) It is just possible that Blake met Swedenborg – the latter lived in London in his later years, dying in Clerkenwell in 1772. Whilst Swedenborg is perhaps primarily remembered as a mystic, he was an engineer concerned with the relationship between science and religion, writing some 40 theological works in his lifetime, mainly concerned with Biblical interpretation. (Sigstedt,1981;500 and 500n) He could, perhaps, be regarded as a forerunner of Bultmann in being concerned to de-mythologize the Bible. The essence of Swedenborg’s theology is expressed very succinctly by Hindmarsh and found in Ackroyd: “It is the sure knowledge that nature and the material world are the vessels of eternity. It concerns the ‘Alchymical Furnace’ in which the spirit world is revealed and is intimately related to Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences through which each material form reflects or contains its spiritual source by exhibiting a “Three-fold Sense, namely Celestial, Spiritual and Natural …..in each sense it is Divine Truth, accommodated respectively to the angels of the three heavens and also to men on earth” (Ackroyd quoting from Hindmarsh Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church (London 1861),1995;103). Swedenborg also expressed ideas which were taken up by Blake in his expression that the imagination is supreme, and that divinity is found in mankind. As Swedenborg said “..In all the heavens there is no other idea of God than that of a Man. By Reason that God is a Man, All Angels and Spirits are Men in a perfect Form” With this view being in accordance with Blake’s views it seems strange that Blake was so concerned to disagree with Reynold’s views on beauty and form. (Ackroyd,1995;66).
To end this article, I will add a few thoughts from the above, which may help to illuminate the character and life of William Blake. He was born in the world of the artisan/small business/lower middle class which operated in the West End of the City of London. His family, recognising his special abilities, arranged for him to have a special education leading to his being apprenticed to an engraver (a very high craft in those days) after which he attended the Royal Academy – registering as an engraver. As such he would never achieve the status that would be accorded to an artist. His parents were dissenters which led to his contacts being from among other dissenters. The Bible was thus particularly important. Politically Europe was in upheaval which would have contributed to the significance gained by the Millennarianists. The influence of the Bible and other classical works led Blake to become a religious poet and a poetic artist. I would, though, disagree with Ackroyd that he was the last great religious poet (Ackroyd,1995;18) – one only needs to think of Gerard Manley Hopkins and T.S.Elliot to challenge this assertion. In temperament, Blake was irascible and this characteristic not only led him into trouble (e.g. his trial for seditiobut also would have inhibited his ability (already limited by his registration as engraver) to climb the social scale. This temperament combined with his quite extraordinary, fantastic creative poetic and artistic output probably also inhibited his ability to sell himself and his works – it is all too easy to dismiss someone’s work as madness if, in their character, they are equally inaccessible. He was not noted as having any real business sense and it was only through the help of his few patrons that he was able to survive. Mention must be made here of his wife. She was largely educated by Blake and became the one person on whom he could rely absolutely – she was his admirer, his very active assistant, and possibly, could, in different times have become his business manager. As Blake himself said in one of his letters “…The Publishers are already indebted to My Wife Twenty Guineas for work delivered…” (Bentley, quoting Blake, 2001;71). Bearing in mind that all the early biographers were male and the very male oriented times in which they lived it is difficult to assess the true role of Catherine. Perhaps the clue lies in Bentley’s comment after referring to the care with which she always kept back a guinea or sovereign for any emergency that “The only person who could manage William Blake consistently was his wife Catherine.” (Bentley, 2001;73).
In summary, Blake was an extraordinary, complex creative force, largely misunderstood in his own lifetime. He seems to have made few concessions to the need to earn a good living, devoting all his energies to his creative output, just managing to produce sufficient illustrative engravings to maintain a very basic income, just about adequate to keep himself and his wife housed, clothed and fed.
As G.E.Bentley expresses it, “William Blake was a stranger from Paradise in an alien world…” (Bentley,2001;438)
Dr David Greenwood d.greenwood@uwtsd.ac.uk July 2021
Bibliography:
Ackroyd,P. Blake London Sinclair-Stevenson 1995
Alexander,D Rebuilding the Matrix Oxford Lion Publishing 2001
Bentley, GE (Jr) The Stranger from Paradise New Haven, USA
Yale University Press 2001
Bindman,D William Blake – His Art and Times New Haven,USA
Yale Center for British Art (also Thames and Hudson) 1982
Eaves,M. (Ed) The Cambridge Companion to William Blake Cambridge
CUP 2003
Fulford,T Millenarianism Basingstoke Palgrave-Macmillan 2002
Keay,C Henry Fuseli London Academy Editions 1974
Lister,R. British Romantic Art London G.Bell and Sons 1973
Moorman,J.H.R. A History of the Church in England London A&C Black 1986
Sigstedt,C.O. The Swedenborg Epic London Swedenborg Society 1981
Thorne,J.O. (joint ed) Chambers Biographical Dictionary Edinburgh Chambers 1982
Tomory,P.(main contr.) The Poetical Circle Florence Centro Di 1979
Vaughan,W. Romanticism and Art London Thames and Hudson 1995
Wilcox, T. Samuel Palmer London Tate Publishing 2005
Wiliams,N.M. William Blake Studies Basingstoke Palgrave-Macmillan 2006
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