Books by William Blake

Quotes by William Blake
Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.
Commerce is so far from being beneficial to Arts or to Empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their History shows, for the above Reason of Individual Merit being its Great Hatred. Empires flourish till they become Commercial & then they are scattered abroad to the four winds
some say that Happiness is not Good for Mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
When nations grow old, the Arts grow cold,
And Commerce settles on every tree.
The Goddess Fortune is the devils servant ready to Kiss any ones Arse.
It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another but from God only
Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.
The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science Remove them or Degrade them & the Empire is No More - Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose.
You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue & you cannot have Moral Virtue without the Slavery of that half of the Human Race who hate what you call Moral Virtue
It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels‚ but because they do not expect holiness from one another‚ but from God alone.
When I tell any Truth it is not for the sake of Convincing those who do not know it but for the sake of defending those who Do
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Reason‚ or the ratio of all we have already known‚ is not the same that it shall be when we know more.
If a thing loves‚ it is infinite.
That the Jews assumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God. will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians
Degrade first the arts if you'd mankind degrade‚
Hire idiots to paint with cold light and hot shade.
Thinking as I do that the Creator of this World is a very Cruel Being & being a Worshipper of Christ‚ I cannot help saying: the Son‚ O how unlike the Father! First God Almighty comes with a Thump on the Head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.
'''To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit - General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.'''
The true method of knowledge is experiment.
William Blake's Biography
British poet‚ painter‚ visionary mystic‚ and engraver‚ who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. He joined for a time the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in London and considered Newtonian science to be superstitious nonsense. Mocking criticism and misunderstanding shadowed Blake's career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance.

William Blake was born in Soho‚ London‚ where he spent most of his life. The house of his parents‚ on the corner of Broad Street and Marshall Street‚ was erected upon an old burial ground. His father‚ James Blake‚ was a successful London hosier‚ who was attracted by the doctrines of Emmanuel Swedenborg and deeply opposed to the Court. Blake was first educated at home‚ chiefly by his mother‚ Catherine Wright Armitage; her first husband‚ also a hosier‚ had died in 1751. When she married James in 1752‚ she was thirty. Blake's first biographer‚ Frederick Tatham‚ wrote that Blake "depised restraints & rules‚ so much that his Father dare not send him to School." From his early years‚ Blake had experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks‚ he saw and conversed with the angel Gabriel‚ the Virgin Mary‚ and various historical figures. Blake's parents encouraged him to collect prints of the Italian masters‚ and his father gave him engravings and plaster casts. Gothic art and architecture influenced him‚ and the work of Adam Ghisi and Albert D.

In 1767 Blake was sent to Henry Pars' drawing school‚ at No. 101 the Strand. At the age of 14‚ he was apprenticed for seven years to the engraver James Basire‚ working for him twelve hours a day‚ six days a week. Only on Sundays Blake returned to his family home. After studies at the Royal Academy School‚ where he did not have much respect for Sir Joshua Reynolds‚ the president of the Academy‚ Blake started to produce watercolors and engrave illustrations for magazines. In 1783 he married Catherine Boucher‚ the daughter of a market gardener; the marriage was childless‚none of Blake's siblings had children. Blake taught Catherine to draw and paint and how to use a printing press. She assisted him devoutly. Just before his death Blake drew a portrait of her‚ saying‚ "you have ever been an angel to me".

Blake's important cultural and social contacts included Henry Fuseli‚ who was a Member of the Royal Academy‚ Reverend A.S. Mathew and his wife‚ John Flaxman (1755-1826)‚ a sculptor and draftsman‚ Tom Paine‚ William Godwin‚ and Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1720-1800)‚ married to the wealthy grandson of the earl of Sandwich. Blake never met the Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg‚ who died in London in 1772‚ but he read widely Swedenborg's writings in his search for ancient truths‚ before turning to the writings of Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme.

His early poems Blake wrote at the age of 12. However‚ being early apprenticed to a manual occupation‚ journalistic-social career was not open to him. His first book of poems‚ POETICAL SKETCHES‚ appeared in 1783 and was followed by SONGS OF INNOCENCE (1789)‚ and SONGS OF EXPERIENCE (1794). Each copy of Songs of Innocence was unique and the poems were never in the same order. The book was not a commercial or critical success. Blake's most famous poem‚ 'The Tyger'‚ was part of his Songs of Experience. Typical for Blake's poems were long‚ flowing lines and violent energy‚ combined with aphoristic clarity and moments of lyric tenderness. Blake was not blinded by conventions‚ but approached his subjects sincerely with a mind unclouded by current opinions. On the other hand this made him also an outsider. He approved of free love‚ and sympathized with the actions of the French revolutionaries but the Reign of Terror sickened him. In 1790 Blake engraved THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL‚ his principal prose work‚ in which he expressed his revolt against the established values of his time: "Prisons are built with stones of Law‚ brothels with bricks of Religion." Radically Blake sided with the Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost and attacked the conventional religious views in a series of paradoxical aphorisms. But the poet's life in the realms of images did not please his wife who once remarked: "I have very little of Mr. Blake's company. He is always in Paradise." Some of Blake's contemporaries called him a harmless lunatic.

Henry Fuseli‚ who was sixteen years Blake's senior‚ recognized also a debt to him‚ and Fuseli was the only contemporary artist‚ whose 'superiority' Blake seems to have acknowledged. Blake's writings did not interest Fuseli‚ but when he required a good draughtsman to prepare a frontispiece to his translation of Lavater's Aphorisms on Man‚ which Joseph Johnson was about to publish‚ he asked Blake to do the engraving. However‚ Blake was not an easy person to get along with‚ especially in a subordinate role‚ and although they worked together on a number of designs‚ by 1803 their paths had separated. Fuseli is said to have admitted that "Blake is d?good to steal from."

In 1774 Blake opened with his wife and younger brother Robert a print shop at 27 Broad Street‚ but the venture failed after the death of Robert in 1787‚ probably of consumption. Immediately upon his death Blake slept for three days and nights. The Blakes moved south of the Thames to Lambeth in 1790‚ where they had more room. During this time Blake began to work on his 'prophetic books'‚ where he recorded his lifelong concern with the struggle of the soul to free its natural energies from reason and organized religion. Although Blake first accepted Swedenborg's ideas‚ he eventually rejected him. His mythical and visionary world he recorded in THE VISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBION (1793)‚ in which the motto is‚ "The Eye sees more than the Heart knows"‚ AMERICA: A PROPHECY (1793)‚ about the rebellion of American colonies and the British response‚ THE BOOK OF URIZEN (1794)‚ an introduction to his cosmogony‚ THE SONG OF LOS (1795)‚ and EUROPE (1794)‚ which contains one of his most extraordinary images‚ God measuring the abyss below him with a pair of compasses. Blake hated the effects of the Industrial Revolution in England and looked forward to the establishment of a New Jerusalem "in England's green and pleasant land." Between 1804 and 1818 he produced an edition of his own poem JERUSALEM with 100 engravings.

In 1800 Blake was taken up by the wealthy William Hayley‚ poet and patron of poets‚ who had a house in Felpham‚ Sussex‚ and whose writings he began to illustrate‚ executing also other commissions. The Blakes rented a cottage at Felpham‚ staying there for three years. In a letter to a friend he wrote: "Meat is cheaper than in London‚ but the sweet air&the voices of winds‚ trees&birds‚ &the odours of the happy ground‚ makes it a dwelling for immortals."

In this period‚ his attention was again drawn to Milton‚ perhaps after discussions with Hayley. MILTON: A POEM IN TWO BOOKS‚ TO JUSTIFY THE WAYS OF GOD TO MEN was finished and engraved between 1803 and 1808. After exchanging some heated words in argument with Private John Scofield‚ Blake was charged in 1803 at Chichester with high treason for having uttered such expressions as "D-n the King‚ d-n all his subjects..." Blake was acquitted‚ and as the Sussex Advertiser later reported‚ the verdict "so gratified the auditory that the court was‚ in defiance of all decency‚ thrown into an uproar by their noisy exultations". Blake's exhibition in 1809 at the shop once owned by his brother was commercially unsuccessful. However‚ economic problems did not diminish his creativity‚ but he continued to produce energetically poems‚ aphorisms‚ and engravings. "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction‚" he wrote. While working on his own version of the Canterbury Pilgrims‚ Blake produced THE FOUR ZOAS‚ first called VALA. The long epic poems was rediscovered in 1889‚ and published in The Writings of William Blake (1893). Many of its drawings are erotic; the central motif is the erect penis.

In his old age‚ Blake enjoyed the admiration of a group of young artist‚ known as 'The Ancients'. One of them called him "divine Blake"‚ who "had seen God‚ sir‚ and had talked with angels". Moreover‚ he was many times helped by John Linnell‚ an younger artist. Blake's last years were passed in obscurity‚ quarreling even with some of the circle of friends who supported him. Among Blake's later works are drawings and engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy and the 21 illustrations to the book of Job‚ which was completed when he was almost 70 years old. Blake never managed to get out of poverty‚ in large part due to his inability to compete with fast engravers and his expensive invention that enabled him to design illustrations and print words at the same time.

Independent through his life‚ Blake left no debts at his death on August 12‚ 1827. He was buried in a common grave at the Dissenter's burial ground in Bunhill Fields‚ where his parents lie. Over the years‚ four bodies were placed above him. Catherine's final resting place was also at Bunhill Fields‚ but her grave was not near her husband. Wordsworth's verdict after Blake's death reflected many opinions of the time: "There was no doubt that this poor man was mad‚ but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott." Blake's influence grew through Pre-Raphealites and W.B. Yeats especially in Britain. His interest in legend was revived with the Romantics' rediscovery of the past‚ especially the Gothic and medieval. In the 1960s Blake's work was acclaimed by the Underground movement. The American rock group The Doors took its name from Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception‚ which refers to a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is‚ infinite." T.S. Eliot wrote in his essay on Blake that "the concentration resulting from a framework of mythology and theology and philosophy is one of the reasons why Dante is a classic and Blake only a poet of genius." (from Selected Essays‚ 1960)

Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008


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