A series of slides from a seminar on some of William Blake's plates and watercolors - brief analysis of the style,tecnique and underlying meaning of the plates chosen.

1. William Blake The Agony in the garden 1799 – 1800

2. To see a World in a Grain of SandAnd a Heaven in a Wild FlowerHold Infinity in the palm of your handAnd Eternity in an hour Auguries of Innocence Obliquely reinforces symbols of the cross, thru position the agony of the revelation to Christ of the details of his Crucifixion, in depth look at the first stages of the passion, Christ's prayers and petitions, at Gethsemane -- which closes with the arrest - focusing on tension of expression and Christ's humanity distinguish a Jesus of action and a Jesus of passion, healer and teacher – increasing the power of the bodies and minds of whomever he touched hero of a tragic drama, whose passion was society's interference with his actions

3. The Jesus of passion goes through a sacrificial ritual, after conquest of death and hell, in a supreme anticlimax after a supreme victory. This Jesus of passion, then is not so much a divine and human unity as a cloven "nature," a suffering man and an exhaled divinity. His sufferings do not reveal the character of a joyous Creator but the character of Pilate and Caiaphas, the Jesus of passion, according to Blake, is the "Satanic body of Holiness" which Jesus had to assume in order to consolidate error, and show what the opposite of Christianity is.“ “The true Jesus” is the present vision of Jesus – uniting of the divine and the human in our own minds, and it is only the active Jesus, the teacher and healer and storyteller, who can be recreated.

4. William Blake 1757-1827 Elohim creating Adam 1795

6. This God uses his power specifically to deny movement to his creationpinning Adam to the curve of the earth, forcing his hand and his head down, preventing his spirit from soaring free. the act of creation as an act of oppression, flanked by ancient symbols of evil n.

8. in his coils, and a ghostly bat-wing parody of a rainbow shines

9. dark sky. But there is hope.

10. There will one day be a second, better creation.

11. Adam’s body, with outstretched arms, seems ready for crucifixion.

12. i.e. – Adam will be replaced by Jesus,

13. for Blake this is another perspective of God,

14. God not as oppressor but as pure love,

15. blessed, vision of the relationship between God and man.To achieve his rich visual effects, Blake evolved an original and highly elaborate system of colour printing with extensive reworking by hand – a new complex medium for a new/complex theology.

18. humanity taking its destiny into its own hands, but with the fear of the terrible possibilities that existed with new technology

19. the subject is taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Book X. In a vision presented to Adam, Death hovers over a plague-house, dart in hand, teasing his victims with the promise of eternal sleep but letting them suffer further.

20. The subject - same as in Fuseli's acclaimed painting/sketch, though Blake's composition is much more economical and more stylized.The Shepherd’s Dream; Fuseli The Leper Colony – Sketch; Fuseli

22. Good and Evil Angels Struggling for the Possession of a Child, c.1793-94

24. known in various versions, the Whitney plate, the previous & the Tate, London etching.

25. the first impression is freer in handling, with none of the exaggerated musculature of the successive versions

26. images are ex. of Blake's symbols—good in constant struggle with evil, and heaven with hell— to underline the theme that “everything is an attempt to be human.”

29. depicts the moments after the broken tablets (at his feet)

30. Moses is in horror while the people continue to worship the idol

31. Juxtaposed to the scene is the calf – standing above both idolators and Moses

34. Blake -Nebuchadnezzar_Minneapolis Blake; Nebuchadnezzar-variant 3 (Tate [?] ) Blake; Nebuchadnezzar-Tate Gallery, London.

36. was condemned to live the life of a beast, until he acknowledged God’s universal dominion.

37. The extraordinary etching results from a number of print overlaps with a final hand touch of Nebuchadnezzar,

38. particular is the frightening impression that the King has been flayed,

39. Nebuchadnezzar’s crazed expression grips us – a face contorted by terror at what he has become.

40. Blake believed that Nebuchadnezzar was connected to the Christian Apocalypse and to his personal view on the stages of human development

43. Newton's theory of optics was offensive to Blake:He made a clear distinction between the vision of the "vegetative eye" and spiritual vision. The deistic view of God as a distant creator who played no role in daily affairs was inconceivable to Blake, who regularly experienced spiritual visions. He opposes his "four-fold vision" to the "single vision" of Newton, whose "natural religion" of scientific materialism he characterized as sterile. * Newton was placed in Blake's infernal trinity along with the philosophers Francis BaconandJohn Locke.

45. Tiriel, plate 2; Har and Heva bathing, Mnetha looking on. Pen and grey wash over pencil; for a Narrative poem written in 1789 Man “cannot have moral virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call moral virtue” .

46. The Ghost of Samuel Appearing to Saul, c. 1800

48. First “King of Israel” (General {Melech/Nagid}– United Kingdom of Israel reignedtruly/virtuallyby successor, David)

49. Sug. Blake’s viewofcontemp. politicians (see Byron – Monarchs: miserable, fearlessofmoral duty and impiouswretches)

50. Passingof the affairsof state fromone “House” toanother – the righteous, David comestohissuccessionby the HandofGod

51. Saul loseshisbattleagainst the Phillistines (aspredictedby the ghost) thencommits suicide (falling on ownsword)

52. Samuel: hand – finger position, signofTrueFollowerof Israel(from Renaissance trad. ofupturned finger and thumbusedbydissenters)

53. Saul (left) terrified – moststrikingexpression; effectivenesofimageas color points focus on the one figure

54. Right figure position as slave and humility – servantofevil, witch at En’Dor

55. Propheticforetellingofhisdeath

56. Admonitionof Saul’s sin ofprideagainstGod’s wishes

60. De Antro Nympherum

61. Dante and Beatrice in the Constellation of Gemini and the Sphere of Flame – Paradise cto II)

62. William Blake -Christ in the Sepulcher, GuardedbyAngels

63. Infant Joy I have no name I am but two days old – What shall I call thee ? I happy am Joy is my name – Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty Joy Sweet joy but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee: Thou dost smile I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee.

65. "He who has sufficed his own age has sufficed all ages," Goethe

66. Blake - among those who have been in advance of their age: i.e. - early songs

67. revealed possibilities of higher perception in common man,

68. Achieved in poetry and painting, that which without him we should hardly have progressed – remains an unexhausted seed-field of inspiration for successors.

70. tendency to a higher medium of art as representation of thought seems the focal to which all else is merely subservient

71. in the series of illustrations (i.e. to Job) the ideal representation of Blake’s own history: idealization of an altered perceptive consciousness