‘Imagination is my world.’ So wrote William Blake. His was a world of ‘historical inventions’. Nelson and Lucifer, Pitt and the Great Red Dragon, chimney sweeps and cherubim, the Surrey Hills and Jerusalem in ruins, the alms houses of Mile End and the vast abyss of Satan’s bosom. He saw the fires of the Gordon Riots and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. His subjects were Milton and Merlin, Dante and Job, ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ and the Book of Revelation. He held infinity in the palm of his hand, yet worked through the night to write and grave all that was on his mind. ‘I have very little of Mr Blake’s company,’ said Catherine Blake with the indulgent sigh of all wives of Great Men. ‘He is always in Paradise.’
As a boy, Blake had seen a tree filled with angels on Peckham Rye. As an apprentice engraver, sent by his master James Basire to sketch the gothic tombs in Westminster Abbey, he saw a great procession of monks, priests, choristers and incense burners walking to heavenly music. When he was a journeyman engraver, cutting ‘fribbles’ for his living, the sacred carpenter Joseph appeared in a dream to tell him the secret of Italian tempera painting. His late beloved brother Robert revealed to him the mysteries of printing. His vision of ‘The Ancient of Days’(1794) taking the measure of creation with a pair of compasses came to him at the top of a staircase in Lambeth. When asked by the wife of a patron where he had seen a field of lambs turned to statues, he touched his forehead and replied: ‘Here, madam.’
Blake was a Londoner. He was born in 1757 at Broad Street near Carnaby Market and died in Fountain Court in 1827 aged almost 70, a Methuselah of the Thames.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in