CHAPTER VII

HIS ART WORK

And now we must turn our attention to Blake’s art-work—the fruit of his life “of beautiful purpose and warped power,” as Ruskin calls it—and the expression of those strange thoughts, beliefs and visions, which were his real world. My purpose is, to turn over, as it were, the leaves of his books in the Print Room of the British Museum (the only copies available to the general public, though several finer are contained in private collections), and thus help to recall to the crowded mind of to-day’s art the living burning spirit of Blake which is inclosed in those covers. After which we will pass on to a general description and review of his drawings, engravings and water-colours in the British Museum, and then consider his pictures in the National Gallery. A chapter will also be devoted to the Exhibition of Works of Blake which were on view for six weeks (January and February, 1904) at Messrs. Carfax’s Rooms in Ryder Street, for this exhibition contained many of his finest works, and several which will not again be seen by the public for many a long day.

[Larger Image]

PRINTED AND COLOURED PLATE FROM
“SONGS OF INNOCENCE,” 1789

In Blake’s time there was little hope of success for an artist who did not put himself under distinguished patronage and paint at the direction of some dilettante nobleman. According to the autobiography of B. R. Haydon the artist (a strange character if ever there were one!), who was in his heyday when Blake was a very old man, nobody could expect to get on without a large dependence on patrons, who would often dictate subjects and treatment, and advance large sums to the painter, to meet his necessarily large expenses (for great canvases cost great sums); and on the strength of this, bind his creative imagination to the yoke of their own petty slavery.

Blake, however, being conscious of his own high mission in art, and deeply sensible of the divine obligation he was under to paint what he must, had to forego the idea of working out his designs in large, for he was too poor to pay for the necessary materials. Hence most of his work is executed in very small space—in the leaves of the books we are about to examine, and in water-colours and “frescoes” of very limited dimensions. As we proceed it will be noted over and over again that designs some six or seven inches square, and often less, are grand enough to be expanded into large compositions and gallery pictures—indeed they would gain considerably by so doing—for so much vitality and splendid strength seems cramped in a confined area.

But that size in pictures is no test of conceptive artistic genius needs no demonstration, though it may be conceded to be a gauge of executive ability. And it is in conception that Blake is pre-eminent.

Going quietly on in his chosen path, he has his little laugh at the crowd of artists scrambling like chickens around the patrons, who mete out the maize to this favourite Cochin or that admired bantam.