'Now I a fourfold vision see' : an enquiry into legible design and pictorial language in the work of William Blake

Abstract

Poet, artist and also philosopher, Blake did not believe in separating the principles that govern one art from those that govern another. Having learnt the trade of commercial engraving, Blake experimented with this stiff old-fashioned style in craft, and found creative ways of adapting it so as to portray what the Imagination inspired him to. Whoever knew Blake at the time, was aware of his claims to divine visions; visions which he often interpreted as designs uniting picture and word into booklet form. This marked the dawn of a new liberty, allowing literature and art to be universal during the 1790s, when self publication was much sought after for enabling artists to express their visions of liberation to the world, without the mediation of those individuals hostile to these visions. At the time, Blake was better known for his images than for his verse, and this often led to a divided approach in reading/viewing his work. This dissertation explores the idea that these two forms, or media, should, in Blake, be sought not only as accompaniment to one another, but also in each other. It is interesting to note how in Blake, the un-illumined verse can sometimes have the visual appeal of an 'engraved image', while conversely, his stand-alone pictorial works (especially those which served as illustrations to other authors' works) can be considered 'legible texts' wherein one may read Blake's own interpretations and opinions on certain concepts. In the illuminated books, these two contrary states of art join and progress sometimes dialectically, sometimes contrastingly and other times in ways which complement one another. What is more, Blake also succeeds in elevating the craft of copper plate engraving, essentially a commercial trade, to the status of 'art form'. The problematic of perceiving is, by consequence, the principle underlying most of Blake's work: perceiving text, perceiving images, perceiving the ways in which these fuse together, and perceiving correctly within the mind's eye that which is the artist-writer's intention. Much in Blake is liable to be misunderstood. His subtlety and elusive ambiguity deceive the passive reader into believing in a simplistic style of writing and drawing denuded of complexity - which is evidently not the case. In adopting such an approach, one runs the risk of either savouring only one dimension of what Blake allows for criticism, or else of loading interpretations of his works with so much sophistication as to lose the essence of the real Blake, and his inherent avant-gardism.