As a tenet of Blake's theory of art, the idea that the outline or lineament was necessary to produce a good work of art, was the most important. He found fault with artists who did not use the technique of outlining the body in their images of human beings. Those familiar with other great artists may find this dictum strange. But Blake had his reason, as usual, related to his ideas of the spiritual being primary, the material secondary.
>From the definition of lineament in Webster's 1913 volume, we learn that lineament is:
"One of the outlines, exterior features, or distinctive marks, of a body or figure, particularly of the face; feature; form; mark;"
>WordNet suggests that lineament is "a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something."
>From a current usage of lineament in geology we learn that "A lineament is a linear feature in a landscape which is an expression of an underlying geological structure such as a fault."
From Blake's usage it seems he was applying all of these understandings of the word. The outline presented the distinctive features of the object, but not just in an exterior sense. The very individual nature of the thing was inherent in the lineaments. The underlying structure became visible through the outline. Now we see why there is a spiritual dimension to portraying faces, insects, trees, serpents or bodies as outlined; to assist us in seeing not 'with but through the eye.'
A mighty Polypus growing from Albion
Blake on outline and lineament:
Annotations to Reynolds, p 178, (E 657) :
"What does Precision of Pencil mean? If it does not mean Outline it means Nothing"
A Descriptive Catalogue of Blake's Exhibition, Number XV, (E 549):
"When Mr. B. formerly painted in oil colours his Pictures were shewn to certain painters and connoisseurs, who said that they were very admirable Drawings on canvass; but not Pictures: but they said the same of Rafael's Pictures. [P 63] Mr. B. thought this the greatest of compliments, though it was meant otherwise. If losing and obliterating the outline constitutes a Picture, Mr. B. will never be so foolish as to do one. Such art of losing the outlines is the art of Venice and Flanders; it loses all character, and leaves what some people call, expression: but this is a false notion of expression; expression cannot exist without character as its stamina; and neither character nor expression can exist without firm and determinate outline."
A Descriptive Catalogue of Blake's Exhibition, Number XV, (E 550) :
"How do we distinguish the oak from the beech, the horse from the ox, but by the bounding outline? How do we distinguish one face or countenance from another, but by the bounding line and its infinite inflexions and movements? What is it that builds a house and plants a garden, but the definite and determinate? What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery, but the hard and wirey line of rectitude and certainty [P 65] in the actions and intentions. Leave out this l[i]ne and you leave out life itself; all is chaos again, and the line of the almighty must be drawn out upon it before man or beast can exist."
Jerusalem, Plate 73, (E 229)
"The Sons of Albion are Twelve: the Sons of Jerusalem Sixteen
I tell how Albions Sons by Harmonies of Concords & Discords
Opposed to Melody, and by Lights & Shades, opposed to Outline
And by Abstraction opposed to the Visions of Imagination"
Milton, PLATE 21 [23], (E 115)
"But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments."
Milton, Plate 32, (E 132)
"Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!"
Modern science tells us that the brain has structures activated very early in life which give us the ability to recognize faces. This ability could be related to the ability to discern lineament as characteristic of underlying identity or spiritual nature.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Friday, February 4, 2011
Blake's Urizen
Yes, he had one-- the Urizen within; we all have one: the thinking component of our psyche. We can only begin to understand Blake when we realize that his IQ had to be frightening. You and I might have a sudden thought; Blake had an Explosion-- of Urizen or Luvah, either one and sometimes all together. The average person wants nothing to do with such an individual (that means of course that if you read this, you are Not average.
Blake's mind was infinitely expansible-- and contractable, as in Plate 55 of Jerusalem (E205):
"Let the Human Organs be kept in their perfect Integrity
At will Contracting into Worms, or Expanding into Gods
.........
"Such are these Ulro Visions, for tho we sit down within
The plowed furrow, listning to the weeping clods till we
Contract or Expand Space at will: or if we raise ourselves
Upon the chariots of the morning. Contracting or Expanding Time!
Every one knows, we are One Family! One Man blessed for ever"
(But the Heavenly Visions know nothing of time or space; those are artifacts of the World.)
"Damn braces Bless relaxes." (MHH plate 9; Erdman 37)
In MHH Blake's Energy and Creativity ran away with him; he despised restraints: turn out all the stops; put the volume pedal on the floor. MHH is shocking in the Nth degree, frightening! All his life his problem was self-control (the last of the Gifts of the Spirit). He had no desire for Self-control.
Lucky for Blake he had a wife, a good and faithful wife: indulgent, but she had a limit. (If Nietzsche and Van Gogh had achieved a successful marriage, they might have flamed out so early.
So as we see Blake had a Urizen within. Urizen believed in Control; he gave the Law, and Blake fought him. He also had a Luvah within. Blake fought the first battle with the struggle between Urizen and Luvah; it was a power struggle between the two inner 'gods', and eventually they made a deal: Urizen, the Light Bearer, gave the Sun to Luvah (Luvah took over the South, while Urizen moved to the North (For a while Blake seemed free from the Law and gave himself up to Feeling).
Blake's mind was infinitely expansible-- and contractable, as in Plate 55 of Jerusalem (E205):
"Let the Human Organs be kept in their perfect Integrity
At will Contracting into Worms, or Expanding into Gods
.........
"Such are these Ulro Visions, for tho we sit down within
The plowed furrow, listning to the weeping clods till we
Contract or Expand Space at will: or if we raise ourselves
Upon the chariots of the morning. Contracting or Expanding Time!
Every one knows, we are One Family! One Man blessed for ever"
(But the Heavenly Visions know nothing of time or space; those are artifacts of the World.)
"Damn braces Bless relaxes." (MHH plate 9; Erdman 37)
In MHH Blake's Energy and Creativity ran away with him; he despised restraints: turn out all the stops; put the volume pedal on the floor. MHH is shocking in the Nth degree, frightening! All his life his problem was self-control (the last of the Gifts of the Spirit). He had no desire for Self-control.
Lucky for Blake he had a wife, a good and faithful wife: indulgent, but she had a limit. (If Nietzsche and Van Gogh had achieved a successful marriage, they might have flamed out so early.
So as we see Blake had a Urizen within. Urizen believed in Control; he gave the Law, and Blake fought him. He also had a Luvah within. Blake fought the first battle with the struggle between Urizen and Luvah; it was a power struggle between the two inner 'gods', and eventually they made a deal: Urizen, the Light Bearer, gave the Sun to Luvah (Luvah took over the South, while Urizen moved to the North (For a while Blake seemed free from the Law and gave himself up to Feeling).
"When man lives by Urizen's 'beast-formed science' he is in nonexistence. The change from nonexistence to existence - the change from Satan to Christ" (Percival page 231))
It was a fragile arrangement; Luvah, like Icarus, got too close to the Sun and crashed. Meanwhile Urizen continued his (false) Creation. He went from bad to worse. In his rocky creation he look ahead; Futurity terrified him, took all his ego and left him a quivering failure. Los came in and subdued him (which seems to represent Blake's Imagination getting the best of his fears).
Once Los had won the battle he found his hatred of Urizen melting away; he found he loved him; he rehabilitated him, so that Urizen was now able to recognize and accept a New Lord.
In Jerusalem 98 Blake told of the final reconciliation of Urizen, Luvah, Urthona, and Tharmas. It is the Apocalypse, the End of Eternal Death leading to Eternal Life, when we graduate from Mortal Life, all is United into the One Man (as in John 17:21).
It was a fragile arrangement; Luvah, like Icarus, got too close to the Sun and crashed. Meanwhile Urizen continued his (false) Creation. He went from bad to worse. In his rocky creation he look ahead; Futurity terrified him, took all his ego and left him a quivering failure. Los came in and subdued him (which seems to represent Blake's Imagination getting the best of his fears).
Once Los had won the battle he found his hatred of Urizen melting away; he found he loved him; he rehabilitated him, so that Urizen was now able to recognize and accept a New Lord.
In Jerusalem 98 Blake told of the final reconciliation of Urizen, Luvah, Urthona, and Tharmas. It is the Apocalypse, the End of Eternal Death leading to Eternal Life, when we graduate from Mortal Life, all is United into the One Man (as in John 17:21).
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Job Picture 2
At the top the Establishment God has the BOOK that we're to go by; go by the book, and only good things will happen.
"God is in his Heaven, and all's right with the world." (Browning).
But between the righteous God and the righteous Job and family something strange is happening: look at that strange figure below God, arms and legs spread widely (in violent motion); he's enveloped in fire.
"Hast thou considered my servant Job" inscribed above the picture: the words of God. The picture concerns a conversation God had with Satan (on the left hand of God?) about Job. Back in MHH days the devil wasn't so bad (Blake said Milton "was of the devil's party without knowing it" (MHH plate six). for Blake at that time, in contrast to the passive, Elected, Satan represented the satisfaction of Desire; he represented Revolution: anathema for the Established, longed for by the poor and needy.
Some people's identity rests on the opinion of others; without reflection, they're called outer directed. But the ability to reflect on yourself is required in order to become an individual, and through the 'dark night of the soul' Job will come to see the whole bit, not just the persona or ego, but the shadow (Jung's terms).
The O.T. God was certainly not altogether good; according to Job's code when you behave all is well; when you misbehave there's hell to pay.
Through-out the Illustrations Job's (and our) Innocence are sacrificed by Experience, which is obligatory if you are to grow beyond Goody Two Shoes.
So the Devil is commissioned to test us; after he tested Job, he tested Jesus (in the wilderness), and he tests us. Job met the test; Jesus did, and became our Savior; we may and become sons of God. That's Job's message for us today.
Job: Picture 1
To return to the post move back with
Picture 1 seems right out of the Bible: we see Job with his family (all musicians) gathered around while he and his wife read from the good book and he prays to them. In the top left the sun sets over the cathedral, a symbol of organized religion (of organzied society, government, commerce, and the whole bit). The sun is not to rise again until the end of this dark night.
Such was Job: "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."
Click on the picture, and then enlarge your font, and you can read the legend(s), of which there are many:
Above the picture you may find the beginning of the Lord's Prayer suggesting an "innocent trusting attitude toward God", an innocence about to be sacrificed.
Beneath the picture proper you may imagine an altar with four animals (perhaps an ox, two lambs, and a ram), where Job offered the sacrifice for possible sins of his children. (This O.T. idea has a parallel in the gospels, where God sacrificed his Son for our sins.)
Edinger p. 17: "Inscribed on the altar are the words, The Letter Killeth. The Spirit giveth Life, indicating that it is the word and Job's reliance on it which are to be sacrificed."
As a fairly young man Blake wrote The Four Zoas, a voluminous work in Nine Nights. Now at 65 he illustrated the Book of Job with a one composite Night. Both works tell the same story.
The text from Job 1:
" In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five 1 hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East."
4 His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom."
Friday, March 12, 2010
Blake's worm
Blake used the worm as a minor but important symbol in his poetry; you may find 87 occurrences of the word in his Complete Works. He used it to express many different, contrasting or even opposite things. Let's begin with Thel:
Thel, Plate 3, (E 5)
" ...Every thing that lives
Blake has been telling us something about ourselves, our psyche, our community, nation, world.
Another important facet of Blake's worm occurs in the Gates of Paradise: (E 269)
"15. The Door of Death I open found, And the Worm weaving in the ground:
16. Thou'rt my Mother, from the womb; Wife, Sister, Daughter, to the tomb;
Among other ideas this evokes something Jesus said about his mother at Matthew 12:46-50:
46While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
47Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
48But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
49And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
50For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
But here we find worm used in a virtually opposite sense,.
Look at Jerusalem Plate 29, (Erdman 175) where the Spectre of Albion pronounces this:
"I am your Rational Power O Albion & that Human Form
You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long
That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun"
What does the big worm suggest? a purely conventional life, with no imagination or creativity, a kind of man in whom Los and Luvah are simply absent. A man ruled body and soul by the Selfhood.
In Genesis we read that God created Man in his own image, and also that he formed man out of the dust. And following Digby we have two kinds of men: the one represented by Glad Day and the one represented by the worm of 70 inches. But God includes 'Men' and 'worms' as part of the 'whole Creation' that will be redeemed.
Thel, Plate 3, (E 5)
" ...Every thing that lives
Lives not alone nor for itself. Fear not, and I will call
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice,
Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen."
The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lily's leaf,
And the bright Cloud sail'd on, to find his partner in the vale.
Then Thel astonish'd view'd the Worm upon its dewy bed.
"Art thou a Worm? Image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lily's leaf
Ah! weep not, little voice, thou canst not speak, but thou canst weep.
Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless and naked, weeping,
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother's smiles."
The Clod of Clay heard the Worm's voice and rais'd her pitying head:
She bow'd over the weeping infant, and her life exhal'd
In milky fondness: then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes.
Blake has been telling us something about ourselves, our psyche, our community, nation, world.
Another important facet of Blake's worm occurs in the Gates of Paradise: (E 269)
"15. The Door of Death I open found, And the Worm weaving in the ground:
16. Thou'rt my Mother, from the womb; Wife, Sister, Daughter, to the tomb;
Among other ideas this evokes something Jesus said about his mother at Matthew 12:46-50:
46While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
47Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
48But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
49And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
50For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
But here we find worm used in a virtually opposite sense,.
Look at Jerusalem Plate 29, (Erdman 175) where the Spectre of Albion pronounces this:
"I am your Rational Power O Albion & that Human Form
You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long
That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun"
What does the big worm suggest? a purely conventional life, with no imagination or creativity, a kind of man in whom Los and Luvah are simply absent. A man ruled body and soul by the Selfhood.
In Genesis we read that God created Man in his own image, and also that he formed man out of the dust. And following Digby we have two kinds of men: the one represented by Glad Day and the one represented by the worm of 70 inches. But God includes 'Men' and 'worms' as part of the 'whole Creation' that will be redeemed.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
FOURFOLD CHART
Blake had a fourfold vision but the system of fourfold was not exclusive to Blake. Have a look at this chart and see how well Blake's system holds up when comparing it to Greek Mythology and modern Psychology.
Greek Mythology ...Jung............. Blake
Hesperus/Hestia = sensation . = Tharmas/Enion
Apollo/Artemis.... = reason...... = Urizen/Ahania
Ares/Aphrodite... = feeling....... = Luvah/Vala
Hermes/Athena.. = imagination,= Los/Enithrarmon,
...............................intuition......... Urthona
Blake..................... Activity...... Psychology... Psyche
Tharmas/Enion.. = Shepherd . = id............ = unconscious
Urizen/Ahania ... = Plowman... = superego = subconscious
Luvah/Vala .........= Weaver..... = ego..........= conscious
Los/Enithrarmon, = Blacksmith = self...........= collective
Urthona........................................................... unconscious
Level............ Element.. Vision
Ulro........... = Water.. = Single
Generation = Air....... = Twofold
Beulah....... = Fire..... = Threefold
Eden.......... = Earth... = Fourfold
As you can see from the quotations in the previous post about fourfold, Blake has also given each Zoa a sense, a metal, a direction and much more. By using this symbolic language Blake brings forth a rich and diverse pattern of associations which speak to the conscious, subconscious and unconscious levels of our minds.
If you don't think these associations are a good fit, come up with your own system.
Water, Earth, Air, and Fire are shown on pages 4 through 8 of this pdf file of Gates of Paradise.
Greek Mythology ...Jung............. Blake
Hesperus/Hestia = sensation . = Tharmas/Enion
Apollo/Artemis.... = reason...... = Urizen/Ahania
Ares/Aphrodite... = feeling....... = Luvah/Vala
Hermes/Athena.. = imagination,= Los/Enithrarmon,
...............................intuition......... Urthona
Blake..................... Activity...... Psychology... Psyche
Tharmas/Enion.. = Shepherd . = id............ = unconscious
Urizen/Ahania ... = Plowman... = superego = subconscious
Luvah/Vala .........= Weaver..... = ego..........= conscious
Los/Enithrarmon, = Blacksmith = self...........= collective
Urthona........................................................... unconscious
Level............ Element.. Vision
Ulro........... = Water.. = Single
Generation = Air....... = Twofold
Beulah....... = Fire..... = Threefold
Eden.......... = Earth... = Fourfold
As you can see from the quotations in the previous post about fourfold, Blake has also given each Zoa a sense, a metal, a direction and much more. By using this symbolic language Blake brings forth a rich and diverse pattern of associations which speak to the conscious, subconscious and unconscious levels of our minds.
If you don't think these associations are a good fit, come up with your own system.
Water, Earth, Air, and Fire are shown on pages 4 through 8 of this pdf file of Gates of Paradise.
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