William Blake - Tumblr Posts
The Harlot and the Giant painted by William Blake (1757 - 1827)
William Blake - an introduction for Good Omens fans
I have sent @neil-gaiman an ask regarding his feelings toward the poet/artist William Blake a couple of times, but no doubt due to the size of the poor man's inbox I haven't received a response. So I did a Google search to see if he's spoken about Blake before, and it did indeed come up with a fair few hits. I think you might enjoy seeing this Twitter post if you haven't already, the painting is from William Blake's illustrations to Paradise Lost.
It's not surprising that an author like Neil Gaiman might have an interest in Blake. A visionary from a young age, his imagination was such that he was surrounded by angels made visible in his mind's eye, and he interpreted these visions through poetry, painting and engraving, and self-printed and published many of his own works. This gave him complete freedom to say exactly what he wanted.
Though he had a passionate faith in God, he also had a deep distrust of the church as an institution, and disliked the use of religion as a means of control. This poem from "Songs of Experience" perhaps summarises his feelings best:
"I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires."
In his poetry there is often an incongruity with the generally accepted religious ideas of what is good and evil, Angel and Demon. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (there's a title that should make any GO fan sit up and pay attention) he tells us that "in the book of Job, Milton's Messiah is called Satan", signifying that he feels it is Lucifer/the devil who is the true Messiah of Paradise Lost.
He gives us The Voice of the Devil and Proverbs of Hell, and has Angels being transformed into Demons through enlightenment. He tells us that Jesus broke all of the 10 commandments, yet was still virtuous because he acted according to his own morality rather than rules.
The god-figure of his later works, Urizen, generally comes across as malevolent, seeking to bind and control, whilst Los, the Satan/Messiah figure represents freedom, imagination and creativity.
"Restraining desire" and acting contrary to your own nature seem to be the only real evils for Blake.
He expressed his faith through a love of the world and the beauty in it, summed up in this quote:
"When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea? O no no I see an innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty".
He saw "God" in everything, in all the wonders we have around us, and considered writers/poets and religious prophets as essentially the same, since they both have a connection to the divine, and express it through stories.
It's quite ironic that probably his most famous poem, Jerusalem (the one that starts "and did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green"), was made into a very popular church hymn, yet it is supposed to be satirical in nature. The poem recounts the myth that Jesus may have visited England in his boyhood, and Blake is expressing his disbelief at that notion and the unworthiness of England.
Did I have a point to all this? Mostly to show my hand as a massive Blake nerd, but also to hopefully demonstrate that there's a lot of common ground between his ideas and those expressed in a show/book like Good Omens, and hopefully to inspire some of you who may not be familiar with Blake to seek him out. In particular I'd recommend The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to any and all.
EDIT: I should have thought to include this, here's Michael Sheen reading a Blake poem. I have the CD this is from, he reads several by Blake, as well as other poets I love ❤️ 😍
“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”
~ William Blake
A Poison Tree
By William Blake
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
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This represents about five hours work. It's not the sewing that takes so much time, but the jumping around, finding the next spot, occasionally undoing, realising you've forgotten a solitary N somewhere and finding the thread out again just to fill in that one letter. This is just under half of the planned piece. It's William Blake's 'The Divine Image'.
I can’t remember if I’ve shared these before. These are two test pieces I did before starting the Iliad, experimenting with different colours assigned to different letters. I used Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ from ‘Songs of Experience’ because Blake. The black lines in between each line of text are designed to give a tiger-stripe feel. The length of each black line corresponds to the length of the lines in the poem ‘The Lamb’ which is often seen as the corresponding poem to The Tyger from the Songs of Innocence.
Edit: to me, on a personal level, these two pieces make a perfect pair. The one on the left is called ‘The Tyger’ the one on the right is called ‘The Tiger’. You see, I made a spelling mistake. Amusingly and perhaps ironically, this is the exact opposite of the mistake people usually make with my own name (they write Sylvie and I’m Silvie). Perhaps I should sign my name wrongly on ‘The Tiger’. :P
The top poem is 'The Divine Image' from William Blake's Songs of Innocence. The lower poem is 'The Human Abstract' from Songs of Experience. Half way through finishing the lower piece I realised I should have done it upside down rather than just right aligned. So that at any one time only one of the poems would have been the correct way up to read. Live and learn.
william blake it seems ive grown quite fond of you tho there are no sexual urges or desires. you come to me as a long lost friend whom i once picked apples with in papas orchard
William Blake didn't have to paint Isaac Newton naked, but he did that anyway. Now I'm going to calculate the radius of curvature of that gluteus maximus.
The thing about painting is that although I love doing it, I don't feel as if my work is actually worth shit. Therefore, the only way my paintings could potentially be of value is if I give them away to friends. The octopus is presently ownerless, but the tiger was intended for my housemate Izzy, who had a suicide scare fall quarter and was gone all winter.
UPDATE: the octopus has been imposed upon a reluctant friend.
Tyger Tyger
A4 Collage - paper and sheep's wool
They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan, They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them to one another
Animated short film on gods and humans and other peculiar creatures.
Based on a poem by William Blake.