| I am not certain what to say about William Blake | | | | looking at some of his later works, I see a |
| as poet, painter, engraver and printmaker. He was | | | | movement and flow that rises right up out of |
| in his own league in his lifetime 1757-1827, with | | | | classical scenes not unlike the friezes of the |
| idiosyncratic views, on everything from nature to | | | | Parthenon which he probably would not have been |
| religion. His lack of a formal education did not stop | | | | familiar with. |
| his self-education, from reading, throughout all of | | | | What holds the body of Blake's work together is |
| his life. From a long line of dissenters, he was for | | | | his view of the world and no one else's view. |
| the most part pro-bible and anti-Church of England. | | | | What he saw as a child aged ten, in reflecting light |
| It is perhaps because he did not have a formally | | | | of a tree, were perhaps angels as he claimed. Or |
| educated cookie cutter view of the world, that he | | | | they were the delusions of a child in full |
| was able to expand and populate his own personal | | | | possession of the imagination of self within his |
| universe with things of his own importance - | | | | own small secure turf, a private piece of the |
| interpretation of the classics, religion, words and | | | | universe. |
| art. | | | | The words of his poetry or his religious beliefs are |
| I periodically run into him in an arts section of a | | | | condiments like salt and pepper that flavor all the |
| newspaper announcing this or that exhibit. You are | | | | rest of the world's basic parts of belief and |
| always bound to see a new picture book | | | | language. |
| published of his curious etchings and then there is | | | | I see some of his art works as being |
| his poetry for which his fame truly lives on. | | | | ultra-modern or even having a strong touch of |
| " To see a world in a Grain of Sand, | | | | Art-Deco in them from the early twentieth |
| And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, | | | | century. He surely captured the classical themes |
| Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, | | | | and so too with his spin of Biblical and Christian |
| And eternity in an hour." | | | | myth. |
| He seems to have had one foot in the past. His | | | | The experts are still dissecting and reconstructing |
| etchings at the time were thought by many to be | | | | their own spin on the spins of this or that decade |
| old fashioned, same as those of his original | | | | ever since his demise. They did not give him |
| teacher under whom he was an apprentice. He | | | | much recognition in his lifetime. His fame is born of |
| made a fairly good living for most of the stretch | | | | human hindsight. That, and the commodity |
| of his life. You would perhaps have to classify him | | | | equation of the present day value of his works. |
| as part of a rising but modest middle class in that | | | | He left behind nothing like personal diaries. His |
| aristocratic hierarchy of British Pre-Victorian | | | | biographers dig through public records and pinpoint |
| importance and view of the day. | | | | him on a historical timeline for a few brief seconds |
| He does not quite fit in with the Romanticism of | | | | out of every year he lived. The rest is |
| the time according to some experts. Though he | | | | speculation, conjecture and third party gossip. |
| lived as a contemporary of the Enlightenment, he | | | | Such is life. |
| no doubt had strong pro-views on the American | | | | He lived grandly of mind within the realm of his life |
| and French Revolutions. Needless to say, his | | | | and only shards of that full life of an artist remain |
| opinions remained in the background of classical | | | | alive in the energy and forms of surviving work. |
| themes. His real world, lived most of his life, was | | | | The words to his poem Jerusalem are part of an |
| in a crowded ever-growing urban London. | | | | unofficial national anthem of England sung at many |
| As I child he learned to draw from stone and | | | | sporting and civic events to this day. |
| plaster classical statues as subject matter. In fact, | | | | |