The Portable William Blake (53 page)

Yet I do not shrink from the comparison, in Either Relief or Strength of Colour, with either Rembrandt or Rubens; on the contrary I court the Comparison & fear not the Result, but not in a dark comer. Their Effects are in Every Picture the same. Mine are in every Picture different.

I hope my Countrymen will Excuse me if I tell them a Wholesome truth. Most Englishmen, when they look at a Picture, immediately set about searching for Points of Light & clap the Picture into a dark corner. This, when done by Grand Works, is like looking for Epigrams in Homer. A point of light is a Witticism; many are destructive of all Art. One is an Epigram only & no Grand Work can have them. They produce Dryness[?] & Monotony.

Rafael, Mich. Ag., Alb. d., & Jul. Rom. are accounted ignorant of that Epigrammatic Wit in Art because they avoid it as a destructive Machine, as it is.

That Vulgar Epigram in Art, Rembrandt’s “Hundred Guelders”, has entirely put an End to all Genuine & Appropriate Effect; all, both Morning & Night, is now a dark cavern. It is the Fashion. When you view a Collection of Pictures painted since Venetian Art was the Fashion, or Go into a Modem Exhibition, with a very few Exceptions, Every Picture has the same Effect, a Piece of Machinery of Points of Light to be put into a dark hole.

Mr. B. repeats that there is not one Character or Expression in this Print which could be Produced with the Execution of Titian, Rubens, Correggio, Rembrandt, or any of that Class. Character & Expression can only be Expressed by those who Feel Them. Even Hogarth’s Execution cannot be Copied or Improved. Gentlemen of Fortune who give Great Prices for Pictures should consider the following. Rubens’s Luxembourg Gallery is Confessed on all hands to be the work of a Blockhead: it bears this Evidence in its face. How can its Execution be any other than the Work of a Blockhead? Bloated Gods, Mercury, Juno, Venus, & the rattle traps of Mythology & the lumber of an awkward French Palace are thrown together around Clumsy & Ricketty Princes & Princesses higgledy piggledy. On the Contrary, Julio Rom[ano’s] Palace of T at Mantua, is allow’d on all hands to be the Product of a Man of the Most Profound sense & Genius, & yet his Execution is pronounc’d by English Connoisseurs & Reynolds, their doll, to be unfit for the Study of the Painter. Can I speak with too great Contempt of such Contemptible fellows? If all the Princes in Europe, like Louis XIV & Charles the first, were to Patronize such Blockheads, I, William Blake, a Mental Prince, should decollate & Hang their Souls as Guilty of Mental High Treason.

Who that has Eyes cannot see that Rubens & Correggio must have been very weak & Vulgar fellows? & we are to imitate their Execution. This is like what Sr Francis Bacon says, that a healthy Child should be taught & compell’d to walk like a Cripple, while the Cripple must be taught to walk like healthy people. O rare wisdom!

 

I am really sorry to see my Countrymen trouble themselves about Politics. If Men were Wise, the Most arbitrary Princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the Freest Government is compell’d to be a Tyranny. Princes appear to me to be Fools. Houses of Commons & Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something Else besides Human Life.

 

Pp. 20-21.

The wretched State of the Arts in this Country & in Europe, originating in the wretched State of Political Science, which is the Science of Sciences, Demands a firm & determinate conduct on the part of Artists to Resist the Contemptible Counter Arts Establish’d by such contemptible Politicians as Louis XIV & originally set on foot by Venetian Picture traders, Music traders, & Rhime traders, to the destruction of all true art as it is this Day. To recover Art has been the business of my life to the Florentine Original & if possible to go beyond that Original; this I thought the only pursuit worthy of a Man. To Imitate I abhor. I obstinately adhere to the true Style of Art such as Michael Angelo, Rafael, Jul. Rom., Alb. Durer left it, the Art of Invention, not of Imitation. Imagination is My World; this world of Dross is beneath my Notice & beneath the Notice of the Public. I demand therefore of the Amateurs of art the Encouragement which is my due; if they continue to refuse, theirs is the loss, not mine, & theirs is the Contempt of Posterity. I have Enough in the Approbation of fellow labourers; this is my glory & exceeding great reward. I go on & nothing can hinder my course:

P. 20
(sideways).

An Example of these Contrary Arts is given us in the Characters of Milton & Dryden as they are written in a Poem signed with the name of Nat Lee, which perhaps he never wrote & perhaps he wrote in a paroxysm of insanity, In which it is said that Milton’s Poem is a rough Unfinish’d Piece & Dryden has finish’d it. Now let Dryden’s Fall & Milton’s Paradise be read, & I will assert that every Body of Understanding must cry out Shame on such Niggling & Poco-Pen as Dryden has degraded Milton with. But at the same time I will allow that Stupidity will Prefer Dryden, because it is in Rhyme & Monotonous Sing Song, Sing Song from beginning to end. Such are Bartolozzi, Woolett & Strange.

P. 23.

The Painters of England are unemploy’d in Public Works, while the Sculptors have continual & superabundant employment. Our Churches & Abbeys are treasures of their producing for ages back, While Painting is excluded. Painting, the Principal Art, has no place among our almost only public works. Yet it is more adapted to solemn ornament than Marble can be, as it is capable of beng Placed on any heighth & indeed would make a Noble finish Placed above the Great Public Monuments in Westminster, St. Pauls & other Cathedrals. To the Society for Encouragement of Arts I address myself with Respectful duty, requesting their Consideration of. my Plan as a Great Public means of advancing Fine Art in Protestant Communities. Monuments to the dead, Painted by Historical & Poetical Artists, like Barry & Mortimer (I forbear to name living Artists tho’ equally worthy), I say, Monuments so Painted must make England What Italy is, an Envied Storehouse of Intellectual Riches.

 

Pp. 24-25.

It has been said of late years The English Public have no Taste for Painting. This is a Falsehood. The English are as Good Judges of Painting as of Poetry, & they prove it in their Contempt for Great Collections of all the Rubbish of the Continent brought here by Ignorant Picture dealers. An Englishman may well say, “I am no Judge of Painting,” when he is sold these Smears & Dawbs at an immense price & told that such is the Art of Painting. I say the English Public are true Encouragers of real Art, while they discourage and look with Contempt on False Art.

In a Commercial Nation Impostors are abroad in all Professions; these are the greatest Enemies of Genius. In the Art of Painting these Impostors sedulously propagate an Opinion that Great Inventors Cannot Execute. This Opinion is as destructive of the true Artist as it is false by all Experience. Even Hogarth cannot be either Copied or Improved. Can Anglus never Discern Perfection but in the Journeyman’s Labour?

 

Pp. 24-25
(sideways).

I know my Execution is not like Any Body Else. I do not intend it should be so; none but Blockheads Copy one another. My Conception & Invention are on all hands allow’d to be Superior. My Execution will be found so too. To what is it that Gentlemen of the first Rank both in Genius & Fortune have subscribed their Names? To My Inventions: the Executive part they never disputed; the Lavish praise I have recieved from all Quarters for Invention & drawing has Generally been accompanied by this: “he can concieve but he. cannot Execute”; this Absurd assertion has done me, & may still do me, the greatest mischief. I call for Public protection against these Villains. I am, like others, Just Equal in Invention & in Execution as my works shew. I, in my own defence, Challenge a Competition with the finest Engravings & defy the most critical judge to make the Comparison Honestly, asserting in my own Defence that This Print is the Finest that has been done or is likely to be done in England, where drawing, its foundation, is Condemn’d, and absurd Nonsense about dots & Lozenges & Clean Strokes made to occupy the attention to the Neglect of all real Art. I defy any Man to Cut Cleaner Strokes than I do, or rougher where I please, & assert that he who thinks he can Engrave, or Paint either, without being a Master of drawing, is a Fool. Painting is drawing on Canvas, & Engraving is drawing on Copper, & nothing Else. Drawing is Execution, & nothing Else, & he who draws best must be the best Artist; to this I subscribe my name as a Public Duty.

—WILLIAM BLAKE

P.S.
—I do not believe that this Absurd opinion ever was set on foot till in my Outset into life it was artfully publish’ d, both in whispers & in print, by Certain persons whose robberies from me made it necessary to them that I should be hid in a comer; it never was supposed that a Copy could be better than an original, or near so Good, till a few Years ago it became the interest of certain envious Knaves.

P. 38.

There is just the same Science in Lebrun or Rubens, or even Vanloo, that there is in Rafael or Mich. Angelo, but not the same Genius. Science is soon got; the other never can be acquired, but must be Born.

P. 39.

I do not condemn Rubens, Rembrandt or Titian because they did not understand drawing, but because they did not Understand Colouring; how long shall I be forced to beat this into Men’s Ears? I do not condemn Strange or Woolett because they did not understand drawing, but because they did not understand Graving. I do not condemn Pope or Dryden because they did not understand Imagination, but because they did not understand Verse. Their Colouring, Graving & Verse can never be applied to Art—That is not either Colouring, Graving or Verse which is Unappropriate to the Subject. He who makes a design must know the Effect & Colouring Proper to be put to that design & will never take that of Rubens, Rembrandt or Titian to turn that which is Soul & Life into a Mill or Machine.

 

P. 44.

Let a Man who has made a drawing go on & on & he will produce a Picture or Painting, but if he chooses to leave it before he has spoil’d it, he will do a Better Thing.

 

Pp. 46-47.

They say there is no Strait Line in Nature; this Is, a Lie, like all that they say. For there is Every Line in Nature. But I will tell them what is Not in Nature. An Even Tint is not in Nature; it produces Heaviness. Nature’s Shadows are Ever varying, & a Ruled Sky that is quite Even never can Produce a Natural Sky; the same with every Object in a Picture, its Spots are its beauties. Now, Gentlemen Critics, how do you like this? You may rage, but what I say, I will prove by Such Practise & have already done, so that you will rage to your own destruction. Woolett I knew very intimately by his intimacy with Basire, & I knew him to be one of the most ignorant fellows that I ever knew. A Machine is not a Man nor a Work of Art; it is destructive of Humanity & of Art; the word Machination. Woolett I know did not know how to Grind his Graver. I know this; he has often proved his Ignorance before me at Basire’s by laughing at Basire’s knife tools & ridiculing the Forms of Basire’s other Gravers till Basire was quite dash’d & out of Conceit with what he himself knew, but his Impudence had a Contrary Effect on me. Englishmen have been so used to Journeymen’s undecided bungling that they cannot bear the
firmness
of a Master’s Touch.

Every Line is the Line of Beauty; it is only fumble & Bungle which cannot draw a Line; this only is Ugliness. That is not a Line which doubts & Hesitates in the Midst of its Course.

ON HOMER’S POETRY & ON VIRGIL

(1820)

Every Poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homer’s is peculiarly so, I cannot tell; he has told the story of Bellerophon & omitted the Judgment of Paris, which is not only a part, but a principal part, of Homer’s subject.

But when a Work has Unity, it is as much in a Part as in the Whole: the Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon.

As Unity is the cloke of folly, so Goodness is the cloke of knavery. Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer come out with a Moral like a sting in the tail. Aristotle says Characters are either Good or Bad; now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do with Character: an Apple tree, a Pear tree, a Horse, a Lion are Characters, but a Good Apple tree or a Bad is an Apple tree still; a Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse: that is its Character: its Goodness or Badness is another consideration.

It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness of its parts. Unity & Morality are secondary considerations, & belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule, to Accident & not to Substance; the Ancients call’d it eating of the tree of good & evil.

The Classics! it is the Classics, & not Goths nor Monks, that Desolate Europe with Wars.

Sacred Truth has pronounced that Greece & Rome, as Babylon & Egypt, so far from being parents of Arts & Sciences as they pretend, were destroyers of all Art. Homer, Virgil & Ovid confirm this opinion & make us reverence The Word of God, the only light of antiquity that remains unperverted by War. Virgil in the Eneid, Book vi, line 848, says “Let others study Art: Rome has somewhat better to do, namely War & Dominion.”

Rome & Greece swept Art into their maw & destroy’d it; a Warlike State never can produce Art. It will Rob & Plunder & accumulate into one place, & Translate & Copy & Buy & Sell & Criticise, but not Make. Grecian is Mathematic Form: Gothic is Living Form. Mathematic Form is Eternal in the Reasoning Memory: Living Form is Eternal Existence.

MARGINALIA, I

Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.

 

Falsel Severity of judgment is a great virtue.