Blake and His ContemporariesVisionary History Painting

Descend thou upon EarthRenew the Arts on Britain’s shoreAnd France shall fall down & adoreWith Works of Art their Armies meetAnd War shall sink beneath thy feet.

William Blake

William Blake, Albion Rose, ca. 1794-5, Color print with pen and watercolor over line engraving. 11x8 in. Albion, a personification of humanity and of Britain, is freeing himself from the shackles of materialism.

William Blake, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Plate 1, relief etching, watercolor, 1793

William Blake, “A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to the Gallows,” from John G. Stedman’s Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild cost of South America, 1796, Engraving, 7x5in.

“Beginning in the 16th century, the area was discovered by American, French, Spanish and English explorers. A century later, plantation colonies were established by the Dutch and English along the rivers in the fertile Guyana plains. Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English. In 1667, the Dutch decided to keep the plantation colony of Suriname conquered from the English, resulting from the Treaty of Breda. The English were left with New Amsterdam, a small trading post in North America, which is now known as New York City.” (Wikipedia)

William Blake (English, 1757-1827), The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan c. 1805-9, tempera on canvas, 30 x 25in

An allegory of the war with France. The great naval commander Nelson (1758-1805) is shown as a classical god, directing the Biblical monster Leviathan

James Barry, King Lear Weeping over the Body of Cordelia, 1786-7, oil on canvas, 8’10” x 12’

HENRY FUSELI (1741-1825, Swiss-British) The Nightmare, 1781. Oil on canvas, 3’ 4” x 4’ 2”. The Detroit Institute of the Arts. Fuseli is considered one of the major figures

of the Romantic movement. Horror and fantasy – elements of the non-rational – fascinated him.

THE ‘MARA’ (detail from The Nightmare) alludes to contemporary ideas about ‘savages’ and half human simians. His features have been taken as resembling

Fuseli’s. ‘Mara’ are spirits who visit in the night, causing bad dreams – or who assault women sexually in their sleep.

Henry Fuseli, Symplegma (Man and Three Women) ca. 1810, watercolor, 7 x 9 in. The inscription is taken from the Greek playwright Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound: 'Thus fatal to my foes be love'.

Henry Fuseli (1741-1825, Swiss-British), Thor Battering the Midguard Serpent, 1790, oil on canvas, 51 x 36in

“An age pregnant with the most gigantic efforts of charcter…”

Nordic legend. Wotan in upper left

James Gillray, Phaeton Alarm'd , 22 March 1808, colored etching,and aquatint. The (Tory) British Foreign Secretary, George Canning (1770-1827), is cast as Phaeton, driving a chariot across the sky and causing chaos in the constellations. The signs of the Zodiac are Canning's (Whig) political opponents and emblems of the troubled times. To the bottom left, the ghost of Canning's mentor, Pitt, watches.

Benjamin West (American, 1738-1820), Destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet, 1804, oil on panel, 39 x 56 1/2 inches, Minneapolis Institute of Art.

The Dragon is ready to devour the child of the pregnant woman, who symbolises the Church, the Virgin Mary, and Israel.

William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun: “The Devil is Come down,” ca 1803, pen and ink with watercolor over graphite, 16x13 in

WILLIAM BLAKE, Ancient of Days, frontispiece of Europe: A

Prophecy, 1794. Metal relief etching, hand colored, approx.

9 1/2” x 6 3/4”

Neoclassical and Romantic

“When he set a compassUpon the face of the deep”

Proverbs 8:27 Old Testament

“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's.” - William Blake

• William Blake's America: A Prophecy, (plate 6), 1793, connecting recent American history with current events in France.

• Apocalyptic expectations of the Revolutionary epoch

The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick!      The invisible worm,      That flies in the night,      In the howling storm,   Has found out thy bed      Of crimson joy;      And his dark secret love      Does thy life destroy.

From Blake’s illustrated book of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Experience