DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31843#0049
MYTH AND SYMBOL
It is true that these books present an art which has little to do with the
world of the senses, the world of which most pictures are made. Bla e
never represents human forms or natural objects for their own sake, never
lets his eye dwell on them so that his hand may portray them as they are
in their natural setting. He uses them rather as a kind of alphabet, or
hieroglyphic means of communication. In these books the same attitudes
and movements appear again and again. It is the weak side of Blake s
art. We need not quarrel with the extravagance of his distortions, his
prodigious elongation of limbs ; these are expressive, and often successfu
in themselves : but the figures themselves are too apt to remind us of the
bad “ heroic ” art of the academies, and it is only the singular fire and
motive force with which Blake animates them that lifts them above t e
theatrical violences of Fuseli. But this saving gift of life they have . an
we forget the “ lay-figure ” anatomy, the paraded muscles, in presence ot
the inspired use to which Blake puts his forms. We forgive the endless
repetitions of attitude and gesture because of the genius which has made
them rush, and float, and fly through air, embrace with ecstasy or collapse
in despair.
Little, too, of the beauty and boundless variety of natural form appears
in these pages. We are impressed, on the other hand, with the ever-
present images of fire and flames ; and in picturing these fierce an
flickering shapes Blake is incomparable among the artists of Europe.
These flames are used as symbols ; but of what i Sometimes they seem
to be a symbol of torture (the “ furnaces of Affliction ”)> as where Hand
in Jerusalem walks wreathed in flames, the miserable man of reason ,
but more often they mean elemental delight and energy, the flames w 1C
spring round Orc, the embodiment of Passion and Revolt, or the flames o
inspiration which surround Los, the Eternal Prophet, and which leap an
toss on that page of Jerusalem where Ghrist hovers over the creation o
Eve. But, indeed, Blake tends to see everything in terms of fire and flame ;
as we have noted in the blossoms on the pages of the Songs of Innocence ,
and in the Dante designs even the stream of lovers caught up irom * ®
water by the whirlwind assumes a flaming form, like that wave w ic
imprisons the weeping Oothoon as she hovers over Theotormon (P ate 49).
Blake is less fond of water than of fire ; and indeed Mr. Damon te s us
that water, according to the tradition of the mystics, is the element asso ^
ciated with materialism. Strange and perverse this symbolism seems .
But when this is not in Blake's mind, none is happier than he in sugges
ing the rush and glide of streams, or the ruffled vehemence of stormy sea.
29
It is true that these books present an art which has little to do with the
world of the senses, the world of which most pictures are made. Bla e
never represents human forms or natural objects for their own sake, never
lets his eye dwell on them so that his hand may portray them as they are
in their natural setting. He uses them rather as a kind of alphabet, or
hieroglyphic means of communication. In these books the same attitudes
and movements appear again and again. It is the weak side of Blake s
art. We need not quarrel with the extravagance of his distortions, his
prodigious elongation of limbs ; these are expressive, and often successfu
in themselves : but the figures themselves are too apt to remind us of the
bad “ heroic ” art of the academies, and it is only the singular fire and
motive force with which Blake animates them that lifts them above t e
theatrical violences of Fuseli. But this saving gift of life they have . an
we forget the “ lay-figure ” anatomy, the paraded muscles, in presence ot
the inspired use to which Blake puts his forms. We forgive the endless
repetitions of attitude and gesture because of the genius which has made
them rush, and float, and fly through air, embrace with ecstasy or collapse
in despair.
Little, too, of the beauty and boundless variety of natural form appears
in these pages. We are impressed, on the other hand, with the ever-
present images of fire and flames ; and in picturing these fierce an
flickering shapes Blake is incomparable among the artists of Europe.
These flames are used as symbols ; but of what i Sometimes they seem
to be a symbol of torture (the “ furnaces of Affliction ”)> as where Hand
in Jerusalem walks wreathed in flames, the miserable man of reason ,
but more often they mean elemental delight and energy, the flames w 1C
spring round Orc, the embodiment of Passion and Revolt, or the flames o
inspiration which surround Los, the Eternal Prophet, and which leap an
toss on that page of Jerusalem where Ghrist hovers over the creation o
Eve. But, indeed, Blake tends to see everything in terms of fire and flame ;
as we have noted in the blossoms on the pages of the Songs of Innocence ,
and in the Dante designs even the stream of lovers caught up irom * ®
water by the whirlwind assumes a flaming form, like that wave w ic
imprisons the weeping Oothoon as she hovers over Theotormon (P ate 49).
Blake is less fond of water than of fire ; and indeed Mr. Damon te s us
that water, according to the tradition of the mystics, is the element asso ^
ciated with materialism. Strange and perverse this symbolism seems .
But when this is not in Blake's mind, none is happier than he in sugges
ing the rush and glide of streams, or the ruffled vehemence of stormy sea.
29