In 1794, William Blake had perfected his colour illuminated printing process, in publishing a series of illuminated books. By 1795, he was ready to use it to produce a limited run of twelve large colour paintings. These formed the first major collection of paintings which he offered for sale: one mark of the importance which he accorded them was his use of the term fresco to describe their medium.

In fact, they were not made using a technique resembling fresco painting in any way. Although there remains some debate as to exactly what he did, the process was probably:

1. Develop the work using sketches, etc., until a design was ready to print. In some cases, these large prints were derived from earlier work, in others (such as Pity), he made fresh sketches.
2. Draw the finished work onto a sheet of thick millboard, ready to colour.
3. Produce a wet watercolour, using pigment, binder, and a honey additive, on the millboard.
4. Print approximately three copies from the millboard ‘plate’.
5. Touch up each print by hand using pen and ink and watercolour to produce the finished painting.

Although it is possible that he may have used oil-based inks or paints on some, Blake’s lifelong aversion to the use of oil paints suggests that he used water-based media throughout, and analyses support that. These ‘large prints’ (also known as his Lambeth Prints, as that is where they were made) are therefore watercolour monoprints which have then been individually retouched and further painted. Given the variation between the different ‘pulls’ or impressions made of each, they are less prints and more print-based paintings.

Neither were they illustrations in the way that the images within his illuminated books may be. They were supplied as individual sheets for mounting and framing as paintings. We do not know whether Blake intended them to be viewed in pairs, groups, or as a complete set of twelve, and there is uncertainty as to his own title for several. Indeed, some of them appear to have been mistitled following Blake’s death, and that has led to confusion as to what they actually depict. I will show them in the order used in Butlin’s catalogue raisonné, although we have no idea whether that was intended by Blake.

Elohim Creating Adam (Butlin 289)

Elohim Creating Adam (1795, c 1805) is the only surviving impression of this work, which appears to have been listed by Blake as God Creating Adam. It is based on the book of Genesis chapter 2 verse 7:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Blake shows this fairly literally, with Adam’s body still being formed out of the earth, and a large worm (not a serpent) is coiled around his left leg. The worm is also a symbol of mortality.

Blake’s mythology for Elohim, the Hebrew word for God and judge, is different from the ‘standard’ Christian concept of God, and distinct from Urizen too. I am not convinced that Blake intended to show his Elohim or Urizen here, and therefore the work may better be titled simply as God Creating Adam.

Satan Exulting over Eve (Butlin 292)

Satan Exulting over Eve (c 1795) is thought to be the first impression of this work, which has its roots in the story of the Fall in Genesis, and in Milton’s Paradise Lost. In book 5 (lines 28-92), Milton writes a more detailed account of the Fall, in which Eve has a dream of Satan giving her the fateful apple, sweeping her up into the cloud before she sinks down and falls asleep.

Blake shows Satan flying low over the sleeping body of Eve; he carries a shield and spear. The serpent has already coiled itself around Eve’s legs and body, and there is an apple by her right hand.

God Judging Adam (Butlin 296)

God Judging Adam (c 1795, c 1804-05) is the third impression, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Blake’s original title was probably God speaking to Adam, as the traditional accounts (in Genesis and in paintings) of the judgement itself include both Adam and Eve, and they wear fig leaves to cover their nudity.

Adam is here transformed to be the literal image of God, who in turn may appear to resemble Blake’s Urizen, as in The Ancient of Days. Additional support comes from the fact that God is shown in the sun chariot, a role normally associated with Urizen. However, unlike that image of Urizen, God is here fully clothed, and Blake does not appear to have used the name Urizen in the title of this work. This leaves the reading open to use Genesis or Milton, God or Urizen, without any compelling evidence on which to make choices.

Lamech and his Two Wives (Butlin 297)

Lamech and his Two Wives (1795) is the first impression of this depiction of an obscure story from the book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 23-4, which Blake titled simply Lamech. A descendant of Cain (who killed his brother Abel), Lamech here tells his two wives how he has just killed a man for wounding him, and killed a boy for merely hurting him. One of the bodies is shown at the right, and the fearful wives embrace one another as Lamech seeks protection from the consequences of those killings.

This seems a strange story to have included here: far better-known, and more popular in paintings, is that of Abel and Cain.

Naomi Entreating Ruth and Orpah to Return to the Land of Moab (Butlin 299)

Naomi Entreating Ruth and Orpah to Return to the Land of Moab (c 1795) is another first impression, showing a slightly more familiar Biblical narrative from the book of Ruth, chapter 1, verses 11-17. Naomi, seen at the left in a black robe, and her two daughters-in-law have become widowed. She decides to leave the land of Moab to return to her kin in Judah. Ruth, who is embracing her, remains devoted to Naomi, and returns with her, but Orpah, walking off to the right, decides to stay. Interestingly, because of her place in the lineage of David and so that of Jesus, Blake gives Naomi a halo, but not Ruth.

Nebuchadnezzar (Butlin 301)

Nebuchadnezzar (1795–c 1805) is the first impression of this justly famous image based on the book of Daniel, chapter 4, verses 31-33. The great and proud king of Babylon was warned in a dream that his excessive pride would lead to madness, and so it does, resulting in him living in the wild like an animal. Blake depicts this in one of his most vivid images of a man in transition to becoming a beast, his nails turning into claws, and his arms into forelegs.

Newton (Butlin 306)

Newton (1795–c 1805), the first impression, is another of Blake’s most famous images. It shows the brilliant mathematician and physicist completely absorbed in a geometrical problem, oblivious to the wondrous rock on which he sits. Its standard interpretation is that Newton’s scientific rationalism was inadequate without imagination and the creativity of the artist – a negative view of the man who is still considered a towering genius.

Pity (Butlin 310)

Pity (c 1795) is most probably the first impression. Although Blake did not supply the quotation or reference, it is generally agreed to be a literal representation of Macbeth’s lines from the opening of Act 1 Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. …

I have discussed this in detail in the previous article in this series.

The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (Butlin 316 as ‘Hecate’)

The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (c 1795) has proved the most enigmatic of all the dozen paintings to read. For a long time, it was believed to show Hecate, which was probably first proposed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This was largely on the basis of the three figures, which were thought to form the distinctive triple form of Hecate. If that were the case, it would be the only such representation in which two of the three figures faced inwards, which would contradict their symbolism. I agree with Robin Hamlyn that this cannot be Hecate.

The next most likely candidate is that the woman seen at the front of the figures is from Blake’s own mythology, Enitharmon: partner, twin, and inspiration to Los (and mother of Orc). She represents spiritual beauty, and was modelled on Blake’s wife, Catherine (who may have been the model for her figure here too). In her ‘night of joy’, she establishes her Woman’s World, with a false religion of chastity and vengeance – which was Blake’s view of the 1800 year history of the ‘official’ Christian church.

She is accompanied by symbols of night, including the owl and bat. She also plays the role of Eve, which may explain the head of a snake peering out towards Enitharmon here. The donkey eating thistles underlines Blake’s rejection of the ‘official’ church, and the two figures behind Enitharmon face in and bow their heads in guilt. The book on which Enitharmon’s left hand rests would then be Urizen’s ‘Book of brass’, in which his repressive laws are laid down.

The House of Death (Butlin 320)

The House of Death (1795–c 1805), sometimes known as The Lazar House (a lazar is someone afflicted with a disease), is the first impression. It is a rather grim image taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost book 11, lines 477-493. There, the Archangel Michael shows Adam the afflictions that man will suffer in the form of disease, now that he has eaten the Forbidden Fruit. So rather than the bodies being dead, they are in the throes of suffering the diseases which have been unleashed following the Fall.

The similarity of the figure, who should (by Milton) be the Archangel Michael, to Blake’s images of Urizen, is clear, and may refer back to his illuminated books, and to the French Revolution.

The Good and Evil Angels (Butlin 323)

The Good and Evil Angels (1795–c 1805) is the second impression. At its left is a figure closely resembling the Satan of Satan Exulting over Eve, particularly in its grimace. It is also shackled at the left ankle, although that shackle doesn’t appear to be attached to anything. Like Fuseli, Blake believed in Lavater’s ideas of physiognomy, and constructs the two angels in accordance with its principles.

Christ Appearing to the Apostles After the Resurrection (Butlin 326)

Christ Appearing to His Disciples After the Resurrection (c 1795) is the first impression, and may have been known to Blake as Christ Appearing. It shows the account of Christ’s appearance to the apostles (or disciples) following his resurrection, as given in the gospel of Luke chapter 24, verses 36-40.

Christ, showing the stigmata of his crucifixion on the palms of his hands, his left foot, and his left lower chest, stands looking up to heaven. His followers all kneel, and pray in thanks for his resurrection and their salvation.

Summary

Many of the images in this collection of a dozen large painted monoprints are among the finest in his works. They contain powerful designs, unique products of his imagination, and several are deeply provocative. Based mainly on well-known and popular sources, most have religious themes, and few seem dependent on understanding Blake’s own mythology. This should have made them accessible and appreciated.

Instead, they appear to have sold very slowly, even to his existing patrons, and to have been criticised by his peers. Thankfully, today we can enjoy them as they are, some of the greatest works of art of the period.

References

Bindman D (1977) Blake as an Artist, Phaidon Press. ISBN 0 7148 1637 X.
Blunt, A (1959) The Art of William Blake, Oxford UP.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Damon, S Foster (2013) A Blake Dictionary, the Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, updated edn., Dartmouth College Press. ISBN 978 1 61168 443 8.
Hamlyn R & Phillips M (2000) William Blake, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7314 4.
Townsend, J (ed)(2003) William Blake, the Painter at Work, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7468 4.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

Some remember John Singer Sargent for his portraits of the most affluent in society. For many, though, his most memorable painting is his vast canvas showing the horrors of the First World War, in the Imperial War Museum, London: Gassed (1919). As with the work of all war artists, we tend to assume that this shows a real scene from the front, a hideous truth about that war. This article looks at the probable limits of that truth, and how much might be allusion.

Sargent, as an American who had worked much of his career in London, was commissioned by the War Memorials Committee of the Ministry of Information in Britain to paint a large work showing Anglo-American co-operation in the war. This was originally destined for a Hall of Remembrance, which was never built, but which required a very large if not monumental painting. He set off for the Western Front with Henry Tonks, a distinguished British artist, in July 1918, and they visited units near Arras and Ypres.

According to Tonks’ recollections recorded in a letter two years later, they both witnessed the result of a mustard gas attack during the opening of the Second Battle of the Somme on 21 August 1918 (although records suggest that may have been on 26 August). In the late afternoon, they heard that many casualties were arriving at a Corps dressing station at le Bac-du-Sud, so went there. Lines of gassed casualties were being led in, in parties of about half a dozen, with a medical orderly in front. Apparently, Sargent was “struck by the scene and immediately made a lot of notes.”

Likewise, Tonks made sketches, as a result of which he painted his An Advanced Dressing Station in France, 1918 (1918) shortly afterwards.

A very different image from Sargent’s, it shows one of the lines of gassed casualties in the centre of the painting, amid the more general carnage and chaos that you would expect of an advanced medical facility during such a battle.

When Sargent came to work on his large and epic painting for the commission, he apparently had the idea of a work involving “masses of men”, along the lines of Signorelli’s fresco The Damned (1499-1505). He feared that trying to combine separate images of British and American troops in such an epic would look “like going to the Derby.”

Sargent’s solution was to borrow from Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s The Blind Leading the Blind (1568), taking the lines of casualties that he had seen, and making them the central theme of the painting.

He wasn’t just alluding to Brueghel, but to Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Daphnephoria (1874-76) too, and to Leighton’s earlier Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence (1853-55), below.

This change to his commission required the approval of the War Memorials Committee, which he obtained before he started work on the painting in his studio in Fulham, London, in late 1918.

I don’t know exactly when Sargent made each of the pencil sketches for his painting, but some may have been made near Arras, and others were clearly based on the professional models who he employed in his studio.

Many, like Study for Gassed Soldiers (1918), show details of different passages for the final painting, and could have been made in Arras or Fulham.

The most interesting, though, are his assemblies of figures, such as Study for ‘Gassed’ (1918). This particular group was turned into the more distant line of casualties, at the right of the finished work, below.

The Two Studies for “Gassed” (1918) in the Fogg Museum are more compositional in purpose, and show the shape of the final painting starting to form. Note, though, that the nearer line of casualties consists of only six (or seven) figures. In the finished painting, this becomes eleven, and forms the majority of the width of this panoramic canvas.

There are several fascinating details in the finished painting, including the game of soccer taking place in the distance, seen in the detail above. Sargent probably added that as a reference to the activities of normal life, contrasting with the horror that is taking place throughout the rest of the painting.

Most remarkably, there is only one pair of eyes visible in all the soldiers present, in the medical orderly near the head of the second line at the right. He even turned the orderly who is tending to the nearer line of casualties so that he faces away from the viewer. This emphasises the blinding effects of the mustard gas, and develops the painting’s theme of vision and art.

Sargent may well have seen Domenico Morelli’s The Sermon of Mohammed (c 1895), which is remarkable for not showing any faces, and Gassed may thus allude to that work too.

As in his portraits, Sargent’s greatest war painting tempers reality with his allusions to other paintings. I doubt very much that he saw what he painted here, but recomposed those elements of truth to produce a powerful masterpiece. That’s what make Sargent so special.

References

Wikipedia on this painting.

Redford, B (2016) John Singer Sargent and the Art of Allusion, Yale UP, ISBN 978 0 300 21930 2.

By 1799, Blake and his wife must have been living in great poverty. His illustrations to Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, which could have been very lucrative, ceased publication after the first volume, and there is little trace of Blake’s activities or art from their completion in 1797 until 1799. He had met Thomas Butts, who became his new patron by commissioning a series of fifty paintings of biblical scenes, for a guinea per painting. These were completed by the time that Blake moved to Felpham in September 1800.

These were the first paintings for which Blake used glue tempera. This appears to have been key in his quest for what he termed ‘fresco’, although it has little in common with classical fresco technique. As with his illuminated printing methods, he did not document the processes, and certain aspects remain controversial.

His use of glue tempera was not novel – similar methods had been used several centuries earlier, and by some of the great Flemish masters – and a version had been popular at one time in Germany, as tüchlein. However, it had generally been replaced quickly by oil paints, to which Blake had a lifelong aversion.

His technique appears to have consisted of the following:

1. Preparation of the support (canvas, copper, or even iron) by roughening, then application of glue size.
2. Application of a bright white priming layer of chalk or gypsum with animal glue, containing a little honey (for flexibility) and possibly plant gum.
3. Underdrawing using ink or paint.
4. Sealing with a layer of animal glue, possibly containing a little honey.
5. Application of layers of colour, in the form of water-based paints using mainly plant gums as binder, with some further layers of animal glue.
6. Reinforcement of lines using black ink, and enhancement of highlights using impasto chalk-based white paint with animal glue.
7. A final ‘varnish’ coat of animal glue.

Unfortunately some of his paintings have later been varnished using conventional varnishes. As these inevitably become dirty over time, conservation professionals have been posed the near-impossible task of removing that varnish without destroying the delicate glue layers underneath.

This method of glue tempera painting is not in itself unsound, but animal glues are sensitive to the atmosphere: when it is damp, they absorb water, and crack when it is drier. They are also prone to take up dust and small particles, which are almost impossible to clean. The tragic result is that many of Blake’s glue tempera paintings are now but shadows of their former selves. When newly completed, they would have been bright, light, and colourful.

I have selected a dozen paintings from this series, and show them in order according to the Bible.

Eve Tempted by the Serpent has retained its colours well, and shows the biblical narrative from Genesis chapter 3 verses 1-5, in the light of Milton’s elaboration in his epic Paradise Lost, in book 9, lines 496-500 and 670-677. Blake’s exuberant serpent is almost calligraphic in its coils, and the tree beside them twists in the same sense, then arches over the top of the painting.

Moses Indignant at the Golden Calf shows a well-known scene from Exodus. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the Israelites made a statue of a golden calf, and started worshipping it. When he returned, with the commandment that they shall have no other gods before Jehovah, Moses broke the tablets in his anger at them. A broken tablet is by Moses’ feet in the foreground, and the golden calf in the left background.

Bathsheba at the Bath is an unusual scene for such a biblical series, despite its popularity more generally in painting (for instance, Rembrandt and other masters). This shows King David, in the upper right, standing on the roof of his palace, watching the beautiful Bathsheba, wife of his general Uriah, bathing. David wanted her, arranging the death of her husband so that he could father a child by her, as told in the second book of Samuel.

The Angel Appearing to Zacharias shows part of the narrative given in the gospel of Luke, chapter 1 verses 5-23, in which John the Baptist’s conception and birth are foretold. Zacharias was a priest, and his wife Elisabeth barren; both were old, as shown. When Zacharias was undertaking his offices, an angel appeared to him, and told him that his wife would becoming pregnant, and bear him a son, who would be John the Baptist.

The Nativity is a unique and quite extraordinary interpretation of this very popular scene in painting. On the left, Joseph supports the Virgin Mary, who appears to have fainted. Jesus has somehow sprung from her womb, and hovers – arms outstretched as if ready for crucifixion – in mid-air. On the right, Mary’s cousin Elisabeth greets the infant, with her own son, John the Baptist, on her lap. Blake makes clear the difference in age between Elisabeth and Mary.

Although that is most unconventional, Blake still includes, at the right, the traditional ox and ass, and a cross or star burns bright through the window at the top.

Adoration of the Kings is a conventional and rather beautiful depiction of the visit of the three kings (wise men, or magi) to the Holy Family, each bearing their gifts. At the left, outside, shepherds are tending to their flocks of sheep beneath a stylised star, and at the right are the ox and ass. Blake’s composition draws the gaze in on the small figure of the infant Christ on Mary’s lap.

The Circumcision had been quite a popular scene before and during the early Renaissance, but had diminished in popularity in more recent times. Blake employs a more formal composition here, which strengthens the effect of ceremonial.

The Christ Child Asleep on the Cross, or Our Lady Adoring the Infant Jesus Asleep on the Cross is a scene which appears unique to Blake, and has no basis in the gospel accounts of the life of Christ, nor in apocryphal sources. It supposes that a naked young Christ has fallen asleep on a crucifix, symbolising his eventual death, with the carpenter’s tools around it. Mary, his mother, then discovers him there, asleep. This curious painting has survived well enough that the detail of the landscape is still clear, with the spires, presumably of Jerusalem, in the distance.

Our Lady with the Infant Jesus Riding on a Lamb with St John is another scene which is not in the gospels, although this started to appear in paintings just before the Renaissance. The young Jesus is seen riding a lamb, symbolic of his later sacrifice, with his mother Mary assisting him, and the older John the Baptist alongside. Details of the flowers, trees, and landscape background are quite well-preserved, and unlike the figures have retained their colours.

Christ Blessing the Little Children refers to the gospel of Mark, chapter 10, where Jesus received chidren who were brought to him, and blessed them. At the left, one of his disciples tries to send the mothers away, to which Jesus responded “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” It is a contrasting reverse of the previous paintings of Christ’s own childhood. Unusually in this series, this painting bears Blake’s monogram and the date of 1799.

The Agony in the Garden is an unusual moment from the extremely popular sequence of the Passion. Although much of it is dark (it is set at night, in the Garden of Gethsemene), Blake’s imagery is as radical as that in his watercolours. The story is a composite from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and shows the instant just before Christ’s betrayal by Judas and his arrest. An angel appeared from heaven, to strengthen Jesus, and “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Christ’s head is tilted in the extreme to face the angel, who grasps him under the armpits. The angel has descended from a brilliant red burst, at the top of the painting. The disciples are seen asleep among the dark tree-trunks.

The Body of Christ Borne to the Tomb shows the start of the entombment of the body of Jesus following the crucifixion, a popular scene in religious paintings. His body, bearing the wound on the left side of his chest, is being carried down to his tomb, with the three Marys following. The three crosses can be seen on the skyline, in the gap before the Marys, and Jerusalem with its more modern spires forms the background of the left half.

Many of this series of paintings follow tradition and convention, but Blake’s personal vision and imagination keeps breaking through, both in his choice of scenes, and in their depiction. Eve’s calligraphic serpent, the unique nativity, Jesus asleep on a cross and riding a lamb, and an angel swooping down to grasp Christ at his darkest moment – these are vivid and innovative images which must have had great visual impact when new.

What could so easily have been a pleasantly bland series was transformed by the mind and art of a genius.

References

Bindman D (1977) Blake as an Artist, Phaidon Press. ISBN 0 7148 1637 X.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Hamlyn R & Phillips M (2000) William Blake, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7314 4.
Townsend, J (ed)(2003) William Blake, the Painter at Work, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7468 4.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

This year has seen major international celebrations of the lives and work of Hieronymus Bosch, William Merritt Chase, and Thomas Eakins. I have barely seen mention, though, of another important anniversary, of the death of Odilon Redon (1840–1916). Like William Blake, Redon was far ahead of his time, and even today his remarkable art is little-appreciated.

He was born as Bertrand-Jean Redon, but acquired the nickname of Odilon from his mother’s name, Marie-Odile. As an infant, he remained in the Medoc owing to his ‘delicate’ health, and did not live in the city of his birth, Bordeaux, until 1851. He started to receive drawing lessons in 1855, and in 1859 prepared himself to try to gain admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, to study architecture. His bid was unsuccessful, though, so in 1863 he moved to Paris to work in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme. Sadly, that did not work out either, so he returned to Bordeaux, where he learned etching and lithography under Rodolphe Bresdin.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he served as a private soldier in the Loire. Once the Paris Commune had been suppressed in 1871, he returned to the capital, where he was welcomed into literary and artistic circles. During this early stage in his career, most of his works were etchings and prints, but he also drew in charcoal, and painted a little. In 1875 he visited Barbizon and Fontainebleau, and in 1878 travelled to Belgium and the Netherlands.

His first volume of lithographs was published in 1879 under the title Dans le rêve (In the Dream), and his charcoal drawings and prints were exhibited in 1881. At about this time he started to paint more seriously, making oil sketches en plein air in Brittany, in Impressionist style.

Village by the Sea in Brittany (c 1880) is one of the earliest of his oil sketches to survive.

In his Breton Harbour (1875-1884), his brushwork has become more apparent.

Breton Port is an undated view from this period.

Rocks on the Beach (c 1883) shows his developing skills and style.

In 1884, he was one of the founding members of the Salon des Artistes Indépendants, which elected him their President. In 1886, he exhibited at the Salon of the XX in Brussels, and in the last Impressionist Exhibition in Paris.

Breton Village (c 1890) has moved away from early Impressionism, with its more gestural treatment of the flowers and leaves in the foreground.

Although thoroughly competent, his paintings at this time were far more traditional than his charcoal drawings and prints.

l’Araignée qui pleure (The Crying Spider) (1881) is an extraordinarily inventive chimera of spider (with an extra pair of legs) and the head of a man.

Caliban (1881), another charcoal drawing, shows the subhuman witch’s son who plays a leading role in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.

Chimera (1883), drawn using charcoal and black chalk, shows one of his early recurrent themes, of eyes looking out, and spiral tails of imaginary creatures.

Eventually, his strange images migrated from his drawings and prints to his canvas, in paintings such as Les Yeux Clos (Eyes Closed) (1890). Redon then abandoned his drawing, and concentrated more on painting and prints. In 1890, he exhibited again in the Salon of the XX in Brussels. Durand-Ruel became his agent, and in 1894 organised his first solo exhibition, which also travelled to the Netherlands and Belgium.

References

Wikipedia

Vialla J (2001) Odilon Redon, Sa vie, Son Œuvre (1840-1916), ACR Edition, PocheCouleur (in French). ISBN 978 2 8677 0150 4.

… Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
(William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.)

It is bad enough for an artist to have died at the age of only 32, and for many of their paintings to have disappeared. But for Charles Laval (1862–1894) it is even worse: several of his few surviving works appear to have been misattributed to a friend.

Laval was born in Paris, and gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts there, where he studied under Léon Bonnat, then in the studio of Fernand Cormon. He was successful from an early age, having his first painting exhibited at the Salon in 1880, when he was only eighteen. Like so many other artists, Laval went to work in the artists’ colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany, France, arriving there in the summer of 1886. There he met and made friends with Paul Gauguin, and accompanied him to Panama in April 1887.

Gauguin and Laval discovered that their aim of living like savages was hardly practical, so Laval earned their keep painting portraits. By June they had travelled back to Martinique. When Gauguin returned early to France, Laval stayed on, painting in a freer and more energetic style. He returned to Pont-Aven by June 1888.

I have been unable to find any usable images of Laval’s paintings prior to his stay in Martinique, and suspect that those shown in the Salons of 1880 and 1883 were considerably more conventional than his Landscape on Martinique of 1887. By this time, his brushstrokes have become very visible, more so than those of Gauguin, and impart texture to the whole painting.

Other works from this time, such as this Landscape on Martinique (1887) now in the Van Gogh Museum, resemble those of Gauguin more closely.

This gouache Study of a Tree (c 1887), which is believed to have been painted on Martinique, bears a chalk sketch of Gauguin on the reverse. It was originally attributed to Gauguin, but more recently has changed to ‘circle of Gauguin’. If it was painted on Martinique, that can only mean Laval.

Femmes et Chevre dans le village, usually incorrectly translated as Village in Martinique, but more accurately Women and Goat in the Village, is also dated to 1887, clearly from Martinique, and bears Gauguin’s signature. However, it too has recently been attributed to Laval, which then begs the question of when and how the signature was put on it. With the huge difference in price likely to be realised by a Gauguin rather than a Laval, it is not hard to guess a motive.

Back in France, he painted and signed Going to Market, Brittany (1888), still bearing his distinctive brushstrokes.

Laval was also friends with Vincent van Gogh; when Vincent asked several of his friends, including Gauguin, Laval, and Paul Bernard, to send him their portraits, this was Laval’s response, which Vincent treasured and praised to his brother Théo.

His last few surviving (and accessible) paintings are those which I think show greatest promise, as he starts to develop a more distinctive style from Gauguin. Harvest in Brittany (c 1889) is not a particularly good image, and I suspect its colours are oversaturated.

The Aven Stream (1889) appears to be an oil sketch made on paper of the stream which eventually made its way to Pont-Aven.

Bretons se promenant (Bretons Walking) (1889), a watercolour, uses a Divisionist-like effect, but with short vertical strokes instead of dots or horizontal tiles.

The Fence (c 1889) is another watercolor with more conventional facture, and a very different effect.

In 1889, Laval quarrelled with Gauguin over Bernard’s sister, an upset which almost stopped him from painting. After that his health declined quite rapidly, and in the spring of 1894, just after his 32nd birthday, he died from an illness complicated by his tuberculosis.

Vincent van Gogh recognised Laval’s talent: in a letter to his brother Théo about Laval’s self-portrait, he wrote that it was “powerful, distinguished and precisely one of the paintings that you talk about: that one has in one’s possession before others have recognized the talent.”

Since his death, most of his paintings seem to have been lost, and several of those which have survived have been attributed to Paul Gauguin, perhaps in the hope of inflating their value. He, and his work, are well on the way to being completely forgotten – an artist in danger, indeed.

Reference

Wikipedia (brief).

After 1800, William Blake continued to paint a limited number of works using glue tempera, although the great majority of his paintings remained in watercolour. The media and techniques overlap to an extent, and some of his last tempera paintings appear intermediate. In essence, though, his watercolours were made with water-based paints and a vegetable gum binder on paper, whilst his glue tempera paintings were made with water-based paints and an animal glue binder on a chalk ground.

This article shows a selection of those later tempera paintings, and follows on from the last on his Bible paintings of 1799-1800.

Spiritual Forms (1805-09)

Blake painted three works in which he set famous contemporary figures: Admiral Lord Nelson, Prime Minister William Pitt, and Emperor Napoleon. The first two were shown in a private solo exhibition which he staged in his brother’s house in 1809. That of Napoleon was not shown there, and has subsequently been lost.

The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan (c 1805–9) shows, at its centre, the figure of the great British Naval commander, accorded a halo of reverence for his achievements. With his arms, he is directing Leviathan, the biblical sea monster which here symbolises (maritime) warfare, and whose coils are wrapped round men and women victims. Nelson had only died in 1805, and was buried as a hero of the nation the following year. Although Blake is careful not to offend his memory, he uses Nelson to express the horror of war.

The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth (c 1805) shows William Pitt the Younger as if he was a Buddha in an Asian painting, but directing the “storms of war” in the form of the huge beast, the biblical Behemoth, which is under him. Pitt and the beast are surrounded by apocalyptic images of war, strife, and suffering, again expressing Blake’s horror of war. Pitt had been the Prime Minister of Britain during the war against France, and died in 1806.

Blake’s use of Buddhist symbolism here is particularly unusual; it was more than fifty years before such symbols entered mainstream European painting, and even then they were considered exotic. Suitable source material was held by the British Museum and other collections at the time, but I don’t think that Blake had ever engraved from Asian artworks.

Chaucer (1808)

Sir Jeffery Chaucer and the Nine and Twenty Pilgrims on their Journey to Canterbury (1808) is a large and very detailed panorama of Chaucer and the Canterbury pilgrims who made up his Canterbury Tales. Blake’s catalogue for the 1809 exhibition gives a detailed account of the main characters included.

The Bard (1809)

The Bard, from Gray (c 1809) refers to Thomas Gray’s poem of the same name, which tells how King Edward the First condemned to death all the bards in Wales, after he had invaded that country. A lone survivor confronted the king, and delivered to him a prophecy of doom. Blake shows the king and his Queen Eleanor with their horses, at the foot of the pinnacle on which that sole surviving bard stands to deliver his prophecy. Blake viewed the Celtic bards as being his antecedents.

Satan Calling Up His Legions (c 1809)

These two paintings show a scene from Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 1, lines 300-334, in which Satan organises the other rebel angels in Hell (or Tartarus), aided by Mammon and Beelzebub.

The version of Satan Calling Up His Legions (c 1809) now in the Tate in London is that dubbed by Blake “an experiment picture”, and has not aged at all well.

The other version, Satan Calling up His Legions (from John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’) (c 1805-09) currently at Petworth, is almost identical in its content, and much more readable still. Satan stands and addresses the fallen angels, calling on them to join the forces of darkness.

Biblical paintings (1810)

A decade after Blake’s series of fifty tempera paintings on biblical subjects, he completed four more for the same patron, Thomas Butts. Each is a relatively large portrait of a key figure in Christian belief, set against the background which keys in their respective story.

Adam Naming the Beasts (1810) refers to Genesis chapter 2, verses 19-20, and is unusual in that Adam is caressing a serpent with his left hand, although this event takes place before the creation of Eve, let alone the Fall of Man.

Although its companion, Eve Naming the Birds (c 1810), looks to be in similar condition, much of what you see here is overpainting from attempts at restoration, rather than Blake’s original work. While forming a pair with his painting of Adam (above), according to Genesis Adam named the birds before Eve had been created.

The Virgin and Child in Egypt (1810) refers to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, verses 14-15, and shows the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus when they were in Egypt. The background shows Blake’s imagined view of the pyramids, and a tiny sphinx, together with the River Nile and the city of Cairo.

Christ Blessing (c 1810) completes the series, with an image of Christ giving his blessing before his crucifixion, there being no stigmata.

References

Bindman D (1977) Blake as an Artist, Phaidon Press. ISBN 0 7148 1637 X.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Hamlyn R & Phillips M (2000) William Blake, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7314 4.
Townsend, J (ed)(2003) William Blake, the Painter at Work, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7468 4.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

“Australia’s Impressionists”
Edited by Christopher Riopelle
Yale UP and The National Gallery Press, November 2016 (US: February 2017)
Hardback, 26.7 x 24.8 cm (10.5 x 9.8 in), 128 pp., £16.95/$30.00
ISBN 978 1 857 09612 5
Not available for Kindle, nor in the iTunes Store.

Exhibition: Australia’s Impressionists, in The Sunley Room of The National Gallery, London, from 7 December 2016 to 26 March 2017. Further details are here. The paintings shown here are among those included in both the book and the exhibition.

Unless you have read my article about Australia’s Impressionist painters, the title of this book and exhibition may come as a surprise. They are important landmarks for Australian art, which may start getting the international recognition which it deserves, and for London’s National Gallery, which is on a course to be more representative of art worldwide, rather than just that of Europe.

The book (and accompanying exhibition) tells the story of four Australian artists – Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, and John Russell – who drew on the blossoming European Impressionist movement to paint en plein air in oils, using rich colours, and leaving visible brushstrokes and other marks.

Roberts trained in London, more briefly in Paris, was influenced by Whistler, and returned to Melbourne in early 1885. Streeton and Conder then met with him, the three became friends, and painted together, Roberts being the catalyst for their developing styles and techniques. It was not until 1890 that Conder went to Europe, and 1897 that Streeton arrived in London.

Russell has not traditionally been considered to be an Australian Impressionist, as he studied in Europe from 1881 and did not return to Australia until he retired from painting in the early 1920s. During his active career in France, he corresponded with Roberts, and was a friend of Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, the Sisleys, Henri Matisse, and the sculptor Auguste Rodin. As Christopher Riopelle writes here, omitting Russell would be like Americans omitting “Mary Cassatt from their accounts of their art for her temerity in choosing Paris over Philadelphia.”

Riopelle’s opening chapter introduces the artists, and establishes Impressionism as a worldwide phenomenon, before explaining the National Gallery’s expanded mission to collect, display, and study paintings that “broadly speaking, fall within the European representational tradition but which may have been created anywhere in the world.” He promises us that “in the future, visitors to Trafalgar Square will see an increasingly diverse display of international modern art.” This is excellent news, and a great future.

The second essay, by Tim Bonyhandy, gives an overview of the painters and their paintings, in the context of the ‘Sunny South’ of Australia, and the ‘glare’ aesthetic which is behind much of their work. He also examines the various names by which the group has been known, such as the Heidelberg School, and Russell’s place.

The focal event which brought the paintings of Roberts, Streeton, and Conder together was The 9 to 5 Impression Exhibition, held in Melbourne in 1889, and is the subject of Allison Goudie’s essay. This is illustrated not only by some of the paintings, but by contemporary engravings and a photo. This is followed by Sarah Thomas’s examination of one of the themes of the exhibition, the role of the Australian Impressionists in creating the Australian national identity. Roberts had a particular part in this, and was once known as the ‘father’ of Australian landscape painting.

Although these essays are all excellent and well worth reading, I found the last, Wayne Tunnicliffe’s account of John Russell’s career and art, the most valuable, as there is so little available about him. For anyone interested in the history and art of the French Impressionists, this is compelling reading, and could justify the modest price of this book on its own.

Russell had private means, an inheritance which had funded his study in Europe in the first place, and in 1888 moved himself and his family from Paris to Belle-Île-en-Mer, off the coast of Brittany, France, at the top end of the Bay of Biscay. It was here that Russell had first met Monet, who admitted that he preferred some of Russell’s paintings of the island to his own. Over the next twenty years or so, Russell turned his house into something of an artists’ colony, where he created some of the most dramatic paintings of the French coast, and taught the young Matisse about colour theory. I can see that I will be re-reading Tunnicliffe’s masterly essay on many occasions.

The catalogue of forty-one paintings by the four artists is well-presented, and the choice of works appears balanced and representative. Although a few favourites did not make the long trip from their Australian galleries, you should find the selection a real delight. Notes on the paintings are provided in a separate section after the illustrations, and are invaluable.

End matter includes very useful brief notes, an excellent bibliography, a list of works, and a very usable index.

Opinion

I hope that this outstanding book and exhibition mark the watershed that Christopher Riopelle promises, not only for the National Gallery’s broader remit, but of more international approaches to movements such as Impressionism. The Australian Impressionists were fine artists who made many paintings which deserve to be seen side-by-side with the best of European works of the time, and John Russell needs to be written back into the history of Impressionism in France. This book goes a long way to achieving those goals, and is a unique introduction to the wonderful works of these artists.

If you have any interest in Impressionism, you will want the book, and to see the paintings for yourself. They have particular significance in these dark days of growing xenophobia, in showing how art and culture know no boundaries, and how an American painter working in London helped shape Australian national identity. Highly recommended.

References

Heidelberg School (Wikipedia)
9 by 5 Impression Exhibition (Wikipedia)
In the Artist’s Footsteps about Australian artists, with extensive biographic information, paintings, and more
National Gallery of Victoria, another extensive account
John Russell on Wikipedia.

In my first article commemorating the centenary of the death of Odilon Redon (1840–1916), I traced his early career in charcoal drawings, prints, and some landscape oil sketches. By 1895, he had largely finished working in charcoal, and started to concentrate more on oil paintings and pastels. The unusual images which he had earlier expressed in charcoal now started to appear in oil paint on canvas. In 1895, he visited London.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman (The White Flower Bouquet) (c 1895) is a startling depiction of a popular story from the gospel of John, chapter 4, verses 4-26, in which Christ arrived at a well in Samaria, tired and thirsty after his journey. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her to give him a drink. That surprised her, as at that time most Jews would not have engaged with a Samaritan like her. They then became involved in conversation, in which Jesus preached to her, and revealed himself as the Messiah.

Redon offers us a unique interpretation, in which Christ appears to be holding a bouquet of white flowers for the woman. There are other adornments, such as the elaborate floral object between the two, and bright blue object high above Christ’s head. Both the figures have their eyes closed.

Deux femmes dans un paysage (les trois couleurs) (Two Women in a Landscape, The Three Colours) (c 1895) is another very unusual painting in chalk and pastel from about the same time. Two women – one apparently white, the other black – stand, their robes coloured by the tricoleur.

Jeune Fille dans un Jardin de Fleurs (Young Girl in a Garden of Flowers) (1896-1900) is one of his lithographs from this period. Set inside the outline of a head and shoulders, or perhaps a garden arch, a young woman walks amid strange and exotic flowers. In 1899, Redon published his final collection of lithographs.

Redon also painted some relatively conventional portraits, such as this of Baronne Robert de Domecy (1900), in oils. Her husband was a faithful patron to Redon.

For some of these, he also made more radical and imaginative pastel paintings, here Baronne de Domecy (c 1900), with its huge imaginary flowers. He was the lifelong friend of Armand Clavaud, an eminent botanist of the day, who must have found Redon’s paintings a revelation.

It has been proposed that Redon’s pastel Profil sur méandres rouges (Profile on Red Meanderings) (c 1900) was intended to portray Joan of Arc, the French saint and hero.

Redon painted many of the most popular stories from the classics, too. This Pegasus, often referred to as the ‘White Pegasus’, from 1900, is a superb depiction of the winged horse, but out of any narrative context.

Ophelia (1900-5), a pastel of the well-known lead from Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, shows her in a lily pond, presumably just after her suicide. The contrast between this and (for example) JW Waterhouse’s paintings of Ophelia from 1889-1910 could not be more stark.

Flower Clouds (c 1903) is a pastel introducing another theme which recurs in Redon’s paintings, a sailing boat containing people. In this version, it is set against a riot of colourful flowers in the sky.

In 1903, Redon was made a member of the Legion of Honour, in recognition of his art.

Redon was strongly influenced by Japonisme, as were many artists in France at that time, but unusually by Asian Buddhist art too. His Buddha from 1904 sets the meditating Buddha at the foot of a great tree, into whose trunk he partly merges. Around him are more brilliantly colourful and imaginary flowers.

Le grand vitrail (The Large Window) (1904) is one of the most remarkable pastel paintings that I have seen. Framed by carved masonry shown in the dull greys of charcoal, a mediaeval stained glass window dazzles with its bright, rich colours.

Much like the avant garde American artist Charles Demuth, Redon also painted a succession of much more conventional floral still lifes, such as his Vase of Flowers (c 1900-10). In Demuth’s case, these appeared to be therapeutic to him when he was suffering the consequences of his diabetes. I do not know why Redon painted his.

In 1904, at the Autumn Salon, a total of 62 of his works were exhibited in a room dedicated to Redon. He also had his first painting purchased by a major French public collection.

References

Wikipedia

Vialla J (2001) Odilon Redon, Sa vie, Son Œuvre (1840-1916), ACR Edition, PocheCouleur (in French). ISBN 978 2 8677 0150 4.

This article completes my selection of Blake’s late tempera paintings, and follows on from the last article on those between 1800-1810. There appears to have been a gap in Blake’s use of glue tempera from 1810 to about 1819, but from then until his death, he produced a steady trickle of new paintings using glue tempera. Here are some of the highlights of that last period, from 1819 to 1826.

The Ghost of a Flea (c 1819–20) is one of Blake’s more distinctive images. It has traditionally been ascribed to a vision that Blake had of the ghost of a flea, but that explains little. It shows a strange daemonic figure, which is the ‘ghost’ from within the small flea seen directly below its left knee. Its right hand is holding some sort of proboscis or feeding tube, and its left hand holds a large cup in which to contain blood, presumably. Drapes frame the figure, and behind is a night sky with stylised stars, one of which appears to be a meteor.

Human fleas and other parasites were unfortunately very common at the time, particularly in densely-populated areas such as London.

After about 1820, Blake adjusted his glue tempera technique, using thinner paint films which have survived much better, even though some were painted on paper. This is more of an intermediate between true watercolour and his earlier glue tempera method.

The Sea of Time and Space (1821) was only discovered in 1947, when it was found on top of a cupboard in a country house in Devon, England. It is a complex and inventive work which has generated much speculation as to its reading, but little agreement.

It may be rooted in Blake’s mythology, with Urizen and his sun chariot at the top left. Several key figures are ranged across the foreground: at the left, is a man wearing red, who kneels before a rough sea and is apparently trying to calm it. Next to him is a goddess veiled overall, and pointing up to the heavens. It has been claimed that she is Vala, the goddess of Nature, and her veil is the film of matter which covers all reality.

Dancing maidens at the right are at the foot of steps which rise through an avenue of trees, sweeping up and across the painting to the sun chariot. Below that chariot is a flying goddess who is presumably a form of zephyr.

Heppner has proposed that the man in red is Isaiah, whose gesture indicates prophetic yearning. The veiled woman is the personification of Ovidian and Pythagorean Nature, who stands in apposition to Isaiah. She points towards the present world, but he points towards a world of imagination beyond. Apollo is the sun god at the top left, with Aurora below. At the right is the cave of the weavers, whose occupants form the material world and renew the human life cycle.

Winter (c 1820-25) above and Evening (c 1820-25) below formed a pair for a fireside surround in the Norfolk rectory of Rev John Johnson. They show figures illustrating William Cowper’s poem The Task, book 4. Winter is taken from lines 120-129, and Evening from lines 243-260. Cowper was the patron’s cousin.

Sadly, with his thinner paint films, both have suffered severe fading, to the point where little of their original colour remains. However, their fine detail can still be seen.

This Virgin and Child (1825), sometimes known as “The Black Madonna”, was painted using Blake’s former manner, with heavier layers of paint, so has darkened considerably. It has possibly been incorrectly dated on the basis of its inscription, which may not be original.

The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve (c 1826) was painted using Blake’s later technique, with thinner paint films, so has survived much better. It is a revised version of a watercolour which Blake had included in his 1809 exhibition, and shows Cain with the dead Abel, and his parents, Adam and Eve. The latter couple are shown behind, Eve mourning on Abel’s body, and Adam looking shocked at Cain, as he tries to flee the scene. He had been attempting to bury the body of his brother, after he had murdered him.

Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils (c 1826) is one of the most colourful and dramatic of Blake’s surviving glue tempera paintings. It develops an image which Blake had engraved for his illustrations to the Book of Job the previous year.

The book of Job records the extreme trials and tribulations inflicted by Satan on one of God’s most faithful servants, as an exploration of the limits of human faith and its endurance. In this section, detailed in Job, chapter 2, verses 3-10, Satan afflicts the long-suffering Job with boils over his body:
So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

The face of Satan is remarkably similar to those of Blake’s other depictions of him, and fits contemporary physiognomic theories. Job wears the long, flowing hair and beard of someone who lived long ago, although he is not necessarily intended to be old himself. His wife weeps in pity at his feet. Behind – in what was originally green rather than blue – is rolling countryside, the sea, and a setting sun, making up a powerful and moving design.

Count Ugolino and His Sons in Prison (c 1826) shows a complex episode from Dante’s Inferno Cantos 32 and 33, of a nobleman accused of treason. Thrown into prison for his alleged crime, Ugolino, his sons and grandsons were all starved to death, a scene also shown in a painting by Fuseli in 1806. Blake’s image adds a pair of angels in a design with strong formal symmetry.

Summary

As in his watercolours and prints, several of Blake’s later tempera paintings are exceptional works which reflect his genius. The two remaining Spiritual Forms, although sadly darkened, are highly inventive political and social commentary, which tread the fine line between criticising heroes of the time and depicting the horrors of the apocalyptic events which they led.

Satan Calling up His Legions is another visionary image of hell, and The Ghost of a Flea shows a very Blakean daemonic figure.

But of all these works, it is The Sea of Time and Space which is the most elaborate and challenging to read. Whether you consider it framed in Blake’s mythology, or his inventive twist of classical mythology, it is a painting which you want to look at again and again, to discover and discuss.

References

Bindman D (1977) Blake as an Artist, Phaidon Press. ISBN 0 7148 1637 X.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Hamlyn R & Phillips M (2000) William Blake, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7314 4.
Townsend, J (ed)(2003) William Blake, the Painter at Work, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7468 4.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

It’s often hard to see paintings in their historical context. What might appear to us to be a fairly mundane depiction of a particular motif could have been viewed very differently at the time that it was painted. If I were to tell you that the watercolour below, by William Blake, was radically different when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808, and changed visual arts, and music, you’d wonder why.

Blake’s painting of Jacob’s Ladder, or Jacob’s Dream (1799-1806) shows one of his many religious stories, that of Jacob’s Ladder, as told in the book of Genesis, chapter 28, verses 10-19.

In essence, Jacob went to sleep one night when he was travelling, and dreamed that a ladder had been set up, stretching from earth to heaven. Angels were ascending and descending the ladder. God spoke to him in the dream, telling him that the land on which Jacob was sleeping would be given by God to Jacob and his descendants. Jacob then named the place Bethel, and in the future it did become a part of the land of the Israelites.

It is one of the simplest and most beautiful of Blake’s very large output of watercolours, and was painted for his principal patron, Thomas Butts. Blake was sufficiently proud of it that it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808, and the following year in Blake’s private solo exhibition at his brother’s house.

The painting shows Jacob, asleep, at its foot. Right by his head is a spiral staircase which ascends to the top of the paper, thence we presume to heaven. Figures are ascending and descending the staircase: although some bear angel’s wings, many do not. The whole scene appears to be taking place inside some sort of ‘big top’ tent, with the starry sky of a moonlit night behind. There is no trace of any ladder in sight.

To appreciate the significance of Blake’s use of a spiral staircase instead of a ladder, we need to consider the view of heaven in the Christian church at the time (and essentially since the foundation of the church). Heaven is ‘up there’ somewhere, well separated from the earth down here. Angels fly down from heaven on their wings, and those dead judged worthy of heaven are flown up by angels. The most pious, and key figures such as Jesus Christ and the major saints, may ascend to heaven in a more formal and significant process. But there is no two-way wingless route between earth and heaven.

Traditional depictions of Jacob’s ladder, such as Salvator Rosa’s from about 1665, show a narrow ladder, with only angels ascending and descending. Because of the width of the ladder, it is hardly an easy route.

But in 1557-58, Vasari had painted a more radical interpretation of Jacob’s Dream, in which the ladder is replaced by a broad staircase. It is still only used by angels, and he shows God at its foot, presumably about to speak to Jacob.

Blunt proposed that Blake got the idea of using a staircase from Salviati’s fresco Bathsheba Goes to King David (1552-54), although he is at a loss to explain how Blake might reasonably have seen a copy of that fresco. It is also a rather strange choice of image, given that through the window at the top we are shown the naked King David and Bathsheba apparently making love.

He also misses the point that Blake’s staircase is a beautiful spiral, more like that in Rembrandt’s Philosopher in Meditation (1632), or Koedijck’s Surgeon Tending a Peasant’s Foot (1649-50), below. But I have been unable to find any visual artist who has supplanted Jacob’s ladder with a spiral staircase prior to Blake in 1799-1806.

Neither is this Blake’s only use of a staircase between earth and heaven, in its broadest sense.

In about 1820-25, Blake painted a watercolour of his Epitome of James Hervey’s ‘Meditations among the Tombs’. Hervey wrote devotional texts which Blake admired, and here the artist expresses his admiration, and sadness at Hervey’s early death, by presenting him at the foot of a curved (not spiral) staircase leading him up to heaven.

Blake’s major reference in that watercolour is of course to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement (1536-41) in the Sistine Chapel, in which there is neither staircase nor ladder to be seen.

At about the same time, Blake painted his enigmatic The Sea of Time and Space (1821), in which a staircase rises from the women at the right, crosses the upper part of the paper, and meets the sun chariot at the top left.

When Blake died in 1827, he was working on his illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, commissioned by the painter John Linnell. One of his last sketches, from 1824-27, shows another spiral staircase almost identical in form to that in his Jacob’s Ladder of 1799-1806.

In the absence of any prior use of a spiral staircase in lieu of Jacob’s Ladder (or any other direct connection between heaven and earth), I believe that it was Blake who introduced this now general image to our visual tradition. It took a little while to catch on, but by 1880, it was sufficiently established for Sir Edward Burne-Jones to use in his The Golden Stairs.

I wonder if any of this had occurred to the members of Led Zeppelin when they recorded the song Stairway to Heaven in 1971?

References

Blunt, A (1959) The Art of William Blake, Oxford UP.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.

By 1905, Odilon Redon (1840–1916) was one of the most renowned modern artists in France. Although classified a Symbolist, his style was unique and often visionary.

Woman in a Gothic Arcade, Woman with Flowers (1905) combines a framed image of a woman, revisiting the concept of stained glass windows, perhaps, with further floral riches.

Devotion Near a Red Bush (1905) is another exploration of an image framed by architecture.

His pastel La Voile jaune (The Yellow Sail) (c 1905) is one of his best-known paintings, and follows on with the sailing boat theme from Flower Clouds. It is best-developed here: the small boat with its distinct ochre sail is filled with brilliant, twinkling jewels. Two women sit at its stern, one with her hands on the tiller. The sea is not calm, though, and small waves break by the boat, while the sky is full of scud clouds.

Being almost pure pigment, Redon was able to achieve some remarkable colours with his pastels, as seen here.

The Chariot of Apollo (1905-16) is an oil painting showing a fragment of classical narrative, that of Apollo the sun god, and the sun-chariot which he drove across the sky each day. From 1905, Redon painted several different versions of Apollo, and his ill-fated son Phaëthon, who lost control of the chariot and had to be struck down to save the world from destruction.

Buddha (1906-7), a wonderful pastel in the Musée d’Orsay, revisits the Buddha theme in its best-known form, with the figure of Buddha now stood near the tree, and a weird collection of plants around them.

It is often claimed that Redon’s paintings became progressively more abstract and less rooted in the real world, in his late career. Butterflies, an oil painting from around 1910, shows how his images still retained form, even though their content was so radical. The bizarre butterflies, flowers, plants, and rocks are often outlined to emphasise their form (as with Blake, a reflection of his print-making).

In 1910, his paintings were included in the exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists, organised by the revered critic Roger Fry in London. Although initial responses were largely of shock, it kickstarted the move to modernism in Britain.

Evocation of Roussel (c 1912) shows an old, bald man with long hair and a beard, who is hard to identify: most of the Roussels to whom it could refer would have appeared very much younger at the time.

Two Young Girls among Flowers (1912) is not only florally rich, but features a swarm of bees. As is so often the case in Redon’s paintings of figures, both the girls have their eyes closed.

La coquille (The Seashell) (1912) is another exceptional pastel painting, here an aquatic still life.

In 1913, Redon’s paintings were included in the large and highly influential exhibition of modern art in New York referred to as the Armory Show, which kickstarted modernism in America.

The Cyclops (c 1914) shows a scene from another story of classical legend. Polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclops, is here spying on the naked figure of the Nereid (sea nymph) Galatea. Polyphemus is now better-known from his blinding by Odysseus, but in this story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses he lusts after Galatea, who is in love with Acis. When Polyphemus finds them embracing, he crushes Acis with a boulder, but Galatea responds by changing Acis into an immortal river spirit.

Widely recognised as one of the masterpieces of Symbolism, this continues Redon’s recurrent theme of the eye and sight.

Redon’s undated pastel of Pandora is one of a series of works in which he examined this well-known myth, a parallel to Eve and the Fall of Man in Judeo-Christian mythology. Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods, and as punishment for the theft of fire by Prometheus, she was moulded from earth and equipped with seductive gifts.

She was provided with a jar (which was later corrupted to become a box) which contained toil, sickness, and diseases. When Pandora was given to Epimetheus as a gift from Zeus, she opened the jar and scattered its contents – ending the ‘golden age’ of mankind. The one item which remained trapped inside the jar was Hope.

Redon’s pastel painting, now in Houston, shows her clutching the box to her bosom, in a garden full of huge and colourful flowers.

The oil painting of Pandora from about 1914, now in the Met, develops this a little further, the flowers shrinking to a more lifelike size, and the box still firmly held to her bosom.

Redon’s undated pastel Evocation, also known as The Head of Christ, or Inspiration from a Mosaic in Ravenna, may well have been inspired by a mosaic which he saw in Ravenna, showing the head of Christ. His eyes are closed, and around him are strangely fascinating forms, painted in brilliant colours – a piercingly blue tree, perhaps, and others which coalesce in the imagination.

Odilon Redon died in Paris, in the middle of the First World War, in 1916. Tragically, his innovative art was quickly overshadowed by the moderns. But his images have gone on to inspire other artists of the twentieth century. And, like those of Blake, they will remain radical, fresh, and inspiring.

References

Wikipedia

Vialla J (2001) Odilon Redon, Sa vie, Son Œuvre (1840-1916), ACR Edition, PocheCouleur (in French). ISBN 978 2 8677 0150 4.

It is not unusual to paint a narrative series, but as I have shown with such series by Thomas Cole and Hogarth, these tend to be relatively short compared with the images in, say, a graphic novel.

The painter who came closest to creating an epic in his works must be Louis Janmot (1814–1892), whose series Le Poème de l’âme (Poem of the Soul) consists of no less than 34 images, of which the first eighteen are painted in oils, and the remaining sixteen are in charcoal. Miraculously, the complete series is still together, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, France. Although the captions do not say so, each of the oil paintings is 130-145 cm in height, and 140-145 cm in width (although I have also seen them stated as being much larger, approximately 394 x 500 cm).

In this and the next three articles, I am going to show the complete series, and try to provide some supporting information for each work. This and the next article cover the first group, the eighteen oil paintings.

Janmot was born, trained, and lived for much of his life in Lyon. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon from 1831, and won its Golden Laurel. In 1833, he was a pupil of Ingres in Paris, and spent a year in Rome in 1835. He painted traditional narrative and religious works to start with, and started work on his epic series as early as 1835. All eighteen oils were completed in time to be shown at the Exposition Universelle in 1855, after which he continued work on the charcoal drawings until they were completed by 1881.

His work was intermediate between Romanticism and Symbolism, and has been associated with an early equivalent of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in France. It influenced Puvis de Chavannes, Odilon Redon, and Maurice Denis.

Like Blake and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Janmot was an accomplished poet, and the series is accompanied by an epic poem of nearly three thousand lines. I am not aware of an English translation, and I have not yet had time to read it, let alone translate any of it! Janmot had a deep Catholic faith, and both the poem and the paintings are framed within his beliefs.

1 Divine Generation

The series opens in heaven, with the mystical formation of a human soul, shown in symbolic form as a baby. This takes place under the watch of the Holy Trinity, although the three figures surrounding the newborn soul include a woman who represents love. Around this tight group are seemingly endless ranks of angels.

2 Passage of the Souls

The newborn soul is brought down to earth by its guardian angel. This view, midway between heaven and earth, shows the succession of newborn souls being taken down to earth in the centre, and the judgement of the dead taking place at the side. The souls of the virtuous are seen being accompanied back up to heaven by their guardian angels, at the left. On the right are those destined for hell.

Below, on the right, is the figure of Prometheus bound, being attacked by an eagle. Prometheus is a strange figure from classical mythology to appear in this series, but a strong symbol of eternal suffering.

3 The Angel and the Mother

This is set by the Lake of Moras, where the mother sits with the newborn soul on her lap. Its guardian angel is kneeling in prayer for the mother and the soul of her new child. This painting combines the images of the annunciation to the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, in a unique way.

4 Spring

As the child grows up, Janmot represents it as a duality of boy, shown here in pink, and girl, in white symbolising purity and innocence. The pair are shown at play, picking flowers, in an idyllic country landscape during the spring.

This mystical duality continues through most of the rest of the oil paintings. At times, the pair appear to be brother and sister, or even lovers, but as we will see, in the end they represent the earthly body (boy) and the spirit (girl). They are usually colour-coded, the boy wearing pink, and the girl white.

5 Memories of the Sky

The young child is dreaming here, of the sky full of angels bearing other souls. This shows the perpetual alliance between the soul and its guardian angel, and the link back to heaven. Janmot made this painting first out of the series, and it is set in Mulatière near Lyon, his birthplace.

6 Fatherly Roof

The child’s family are at home during a thunderstorm, shown by the flashes of lightning at the window. Grandmother reads a psalm to calm the spirit, while the mother and another young woman sit and sew. Father (a self-portrait at the age of thirty) looks on with concern. An even older woman, perhaps the great-grandmother, sits in the shadows near the window.

7 The Bad Path

The couple have grown now, and find themselves walking along a path by the university. In the niches alongside the path are its professors, each offering false learning which might replace their faith. That learning is represented by the combination of papers and a lighted candle. In the niche closest to the viewer is the figure of death itself, its niche decorated with skeletons. The land is rocky and barren, with a wizened tree, on which an owl is perched.

8 The Nightmare

This nightmare follows on from the previous painting, and shows the figure of death pursuing the child, already clutching the limp soul with its right arm. As the boy tries to run ahead, the ground falls away from under his feet. Gargoyle-like heads watch the chase from tiny windows.

9 The Grain of Wheat

The nightmare past, the couple are being taught by a priest beside a ripe wheatfield. A dog, indicating fidelity, is asleep nearby, and the light of the Holy Spirit shines on their foreheads.

References

There are several books available in French, notably those written by Élisabeth Hardouin-Fugier who is the leading expert on Janmot and this series.

Wikipedia (in French).

This article concludes my account of the series of eighteen oil paintings which make up the first part of Louis Janmot‘s epic Poem of the Soul, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France.

10 First Communion

The pair are seen attending their first Holy Communion, which takes place in the nave of the Cathedral of Saint-Jean de Lyon. They are seen in the company of many other young people who are also receiving their first Communion, in a scene lit to emphasise the spiritual importance, with small pools of rich colours where the sunlight has passed through the stained glass windows.

11 Virginitas

Still dressed in their gowns from church, the two sit together by a pond, with high mountain peaks in the distance. The boy is stroking a dove, a symbol of peace, while the girl strokes a panther, indicating tamed passions. They both hold a lily, for purity, which separates and unifies them.

12 The Golden Stairs

In a revisit of Jacob’s Ladder, the pair fall asleep in the woods, and dream of a perpetual cycle of nine angels ascending and descending a staircase which leads towards God in heaven. The angels each carry a symbol of the arts, such as a musical instrument.

13 Sunrays

In the early autumn, the two join with three other young people in a dance, strongly reminiscent of Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time (c 1634-6). Signifying the passing of time and the rites of early adulthood, the young woman looks directly at the viewer.

14 On the Mountain

The couple now undertake life’s challenges, symbolised by the ascent of a mountain, a task they accomplish together. So they achieve the ideals of life, both earthly and spiritual. This also indicates their exploration of space, and the world in which they live.

15 One Evening

Having made their ascent, the pair are seen on the summit, as the sun sets behind them. This peak also marks their transition from adolescence to adulthood.

16 The Flight of the Soul

From the summit, the soul (young woman) takes the young man on a flight over the plains below, where the country is less attractive than they might wish. Looking at one another, they give themselves strength in their unity.

17 The Ideal

They now near the zenith of their flight, and the young woman (soul) parts the clouds towards heaven. The young man says that he trembles with joy but also feels a wave of fear. She bids him farewell, telling him that where she is going (to heaven), he cannot follow.

18 Reality

Now a man, returned to earth alone, his spirit back in heaven, he kneels before a wooden cross decorated with a garland of flowers which she left him. (It is said that this refers back to flowers which she wore at their First Communion, but no such flowers appear in the paintings.) He pines for her memory, as breaks in the cloud cast bright sunlight down on patches of the earth.

Janmot’s story continues in the charcoal drawings which I will show in the next article in this series.

References

There are several books available in French, notably those written by Élisabeth Hardouin-Fugier who is the leading expert on Janmot and this series.

Wikipedia (in French).

Of all William Blake’s visionary images, perhaps the most radical and distinctive is that of the whirlwind. Sometimes it is divine, other times decidely secular if not downright sinful. No other artist could have painted The Circle of the Lustful: Francesca da Rimini (c 1824), more popularly known as The Whirlwind of Lovers. This article considers where Blake’s whirlwinds came from, and how they came to have eyes and to form cars.

Images of mystical blasts similar to whirlwinds had occasionally appeared earlier, but it was probably the visionary paintings of Hieronymus Bosch which triggered a steady stream of such images. By about 1685, when Domenicus van Wijnen painted this vision of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, torrents of daemons and fairy-like creatures were becoming organised into formed streams.

These cascades of bodies became further developed in the paintings of Henry Fuseli, here in his The Vision of Catherine of Aragon from 1781. Blake and Fuseli became friends in 1787, and Blake would undoubtedly have seen and discussed this work well before 1800. The figures in the upward stream are still quite separate from one another, and the stream itself is not clearly defined, its edges blurred rather than crisp outlines.

In Fuseli’s Tiresias Appears to Ulysses During the Sacrifice (1780-85), the cascade is more organised, and the individual figures from which it is composed are becoming subsumed in the stream. Its edges are still not well-defined, though, and it has not formed the tube which is so distinctive in Blake’s whirlwinds.

As far as I can see, Blake’s first use of a ‘divine whirlwind’ was in his Job Confessing his Presumption to God who Answers from the Whirlwind, painted for Thomas Butts between 1803-5, and the basis of a later illustration for the book of Job. This refers to the book of Job, chapter 40, verses 3-6.

Half a dozen swooping angels here trace a loop, with the figure of God at its centre. The outlines of the angels’ wings form a clearly demarcated and smooth tube, although the individual angels remain distinct from one another.

The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne, from the same period and series of watercolours for Thomas Butts, uses a similar visual effect to show a passage from the book of Revelation, chapter 4 verses 2-11. Here they are intended to represent the “four beasts full of eyes”, while the twenty-four elders of the title fall down and worship God in the centre.

It is also worth noting the observation of John Gage that the rainbow shown here, and that in Blake’s Dante painting below, has the order of its colours reversed, making it an inverse Newtonian rainbow. Prior to 1803, Blake painted his rainbows according to Newton, with the red uppermost. Gage believes that Blake reversed the order after he had seen George Romney’s painting Newton and the Prism (1794) in about 1803-4.

Then in 1809 comes this, The Whore of Babylon, from a small series of watercolours depicting visionary scenes from the book of Revelation, which Blake painted for Thomas Butts. The stream of naked figures which emerges from the chalice held by the whore of the title is well-defined, and curves tightly around the top of the paper, to cascade down its right edge, where it presumably deposits its miniature figures to populate the chaotic scenes at the foot.

As with Blake’s other phantasmagoric images, the divine whirlwind appears most in his later works. This watercolour of Milton’s Mysterious Dream from about 1816-20 combines sweeping curves of figures with abundant eyes. This is based on Il Penseroso, lines 139-140 and 145-154, although neither that text nor Blake’s notes mention the significance of the many eyes.

In about 1825, Blake painted his version of Queen Katherine’s Dream, clearly inspired by Fuseli’s. The exuberant stream of figures dominates the painting, breaking up into formations of individual figures, and coalescing in other places to form local ‘tubes’.

This becomes a recurrent image in the uncompleted paintings which Blake was still making at the time of his death, illustrating Dante’s Divine Comedy for his patron, the artist John Linnell. Although some of these are obviously far from complete, Blake seems to have finished The Circle of the Lustful: Francesca da Rimini in about 1824, and it was one of the seven which had already been etched. This accompanies Inferno, Canto 5, lines 25-45 and 127-142.

This whirlwind doesn’t carry God or angels, but the adulterous couple of Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo, her husband’s brother, naked and contorted as they are swept through the loops. The figures are shown quite distinctly inside a well-defined tube. With multiple figures representing the couple, Blake has used a technique to indicate their movement which did not become popular until the twentieth century, when it had been reinforced by the motion photography of Eadweard Muybridge.

Blake used a similar device to show Beatrice on the Car, Matilda and Dante (from Purgatorio, Canto 29, lines 13-150) (1824-7). This unfinished painting shows from a distance how the ‘car’ within which Beatrice stands, just above the centre of the painting, consists of organised ‘whirlwinds’ of figures.

It is this close-up of the ‘car’ (chariot) which represents the ultimate in Blake’s whirlwinds, in Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Car (1824–7). This accompanies Purgatorio, Canto 29 lines 92-129, and Canto 30, lines 31-33 and 64-81. Here the whirlwind forms the wheels and structure of the vehicle, and is rich in floating eyes.

This shows the closing stages of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the author is being guided through heaven by his ideal woman, Beatrice. The heads of the four apostles are shown on the sides of the car, at each side of Beatrice. Beneath her a formed vortex of whirlwind, bearing more eyes, makes the wheel. There are references to Blake’s self-published book Vala, or The Four Zoas, and the eye motifs may have originated there in Blake’s concept of the ‘seven eyes of God’.

William Blake’s divine whirlwinds are a good example of a visual device which he saw in previous art – here the paintings of his friend Henry Fuseli – and which he developed into a unique, powerful, and visionary motif of his own. They combine strong graphic design with his distinctive mystical references in a way that could only ever be Blake’s.

Reference

Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.

This third article in the series covering Louis Janmot‘s (1814–1892) epic narrative series of paintings, Le Poème de l’âme (Poem of the Soul), shows the first half of the second group, drawn in charcoal. I believe that these are each of about 130 x 145 cm in size, and were completed during the decade 1860-70, and certainly by 1881.

The first group of 18 paintings in oils showed the story of a baby growing into a man, and his relationship with his dual soul, depicted as being female. Once he attained manhood, his soul departed and returned to heaven, leaving the young man alone on earth.

These sixteen drawings trace the man’s journey through life, much in the way that Hogarth did, in a moralistic story of sin and redemption.

In trying to reassemble this series, I have discovered serious discrepancies in the naming and ordering of the charcoal drawings, between the various pages and documents which claim to list them. I have done my best to give them the correct titles and place them in the sequence intended by Janmot. If you find any errors, please let me know so that I can correct them here.

19 Solitude

As the oil paintings had closed, so the drawings start with an image of solitude: the young man is now in a seemingly endless wood, leaning back and looking very pensive.

20 The Infinite

He goes down to the sea, where the waters stretch out to the horizon, and the sea and sky appear endless. He is still alone, pining for his soul, and in search of his role as an adult.

21 Dream of Fire

He falls asleep and dreams of a group of young people, innocent in their nakedness. One, resembling his soul, approaches him. She was wearing a garland of flowers similar to those which his soul had worn in his youth, but the garland has fallen into fragments.

22 Love

He falls in love with a young woman, and they court out in the countryside, sat by a placid lake in the forest. She wears the same floral garland on her head. (This appears to be in his dream still.)

23 Goodbye

His love runs away from him, across the sea, as if she was just his dream of his soul again. Behind him the broken flowers reflect his broken love.

24 Doubt

He is alone again, wandering in the hills and mountains, with doubt growing over his faith, his soul, and God.

25 The Spirit of Evil

As he sits on a rock, his doubts now festering, an evil spirit draws up behind him, bringing with her the seven deadly sins. These are inscribed in Latin on the flag she bears, and embodied in the seven spirits which accompany her. He gives in to their temptation.

26 The Orgy

We next see him at a modern-day bacchanalian orgy, drink flowing freely, and dancing with a young woman whose virtue seems as scant as her dress. A long table, which is reminiscent of the scene for the Last Supper, is now being danced upon by an inebriated and wanton woman, and others are scattered around the room.

References

There are several books available in French, notably those written by Élisabeth Hardouin-Fugier who is the leading expert on Janmot and this series.

Wikipedia (in French).

This fourth article completes the final drawings in the second part of Louis Janmot‘s (1814–1892) epic narrative series of paintings, Le Poème de l’âme (Poem of the Soul).

The previous drawings traced the young man’s history to the point where he succumbed to an evil spirit, and engaged actively in an orgy.

27 Godless

The man is alone again, surrounded not by the flowers and countryside of his youth, but by wizened and twisted trees, straggling thistles, weeds, and barren rocks. Having abandoned God and his faith, a figure is now approaching him from behind. That figure is swathed in black robes, which even cover its face.

28 The Phantom

The black-robed figure has now driven the man down to the beach, where it pushes him along into the wind of the gathering storm. His bare feet are crossing hard rocks, not soft sand, and he is deeply fearful.

29 Fatal Fall

In one of the most complex images of the whole series, the black-robed phantom sits impassively as the young man falls from a path at the top of a cliff. The scene is apocalyptic: with rare touches of colour, there are buildings burning in the background, and high volcanoes lit red with their flowing lava. The phantom sits at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent still coiled around its branches. At the left, a man bears a burning brand and a dagger; at the right a nude woman holds her cup up for Satan to refill it.

Behind the figures is a large classical building, similar to the Acropolis, which looks set to be engulfed by the approaching fire and its dense palls of smoke. Satan holds up a funeral plaque bearing the Latin word ERITIS, meaning you will be, while the phantom holds an open book with the words FATALITÉ (fatality), REVOLTE (revolt), and MATÉRIALITÉ (materiality).

30 The Torture of Mezentius

The young man apparently did not die from his fall, but is now seen on a ledge in barren mountainous terrain, chained to the lifeless corpse of a woman – a situation known as the torture of Mezentius. Mezentius was an Etruscan king who was notoriously cruel, and known to the Romans as a ‘despiser of the gods’. He apparently took particular pleasure in executing people by chaining them to corpses, and leaving them to die slowly as the corpse next to them decayed.

Janmot also produced an oil painting based on this scene, which was exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1865, and has recently been acquired by the Musée d’Orsay.

31 Generations of Evil

The man has aged now, and is still chained to the corpse. He has been brought to another ledge. At the left, an old man sits, studying his face in a hand-mirror, while he strokes a monkey’s head. At the right, the phantom sits on the statue of a sphinx, a human skull held on its lap. Behind and above them, seven topless young women dance in a round, perhaps a dance to the music of time.

This is Janmot’s most enigmatic image in the series, and possibly represents the man’s nightmare vision as he kneels chained to the corpse, awaiting his eventual death.

32 Maternal Intercession

The man’s plight is taken by his mother to Jesus and the Virgin Mary, who are sat beside one another in heaven. Around them are angels playing harps. One young woman – at the right, accompanied by a winged angel – appears to be the man’s soul, who is perhaps being prepared for a journey to mark his death. The man and corpse are seen in a glimpse of earth at the foot of the drawing.

33 Deliverance

The intercession was successful, and a team led by an angel arrives to address the man’s plight. The woman’s corpse is despatched into the waves, perhaps in a form of burial at sea. The angel’s team consists of two other women, who sit and read from books held open by putti. At their feet are symbolic animals: a lion (strength), fox (cunning), and sheep (the sacrifice of Jesus Christ). Above them are three more putti, bearing symbolic objects including a large fish-hook, whose meaning is obscure.

34 Sursum Corda (Lift up Your Hearts!)

The man is welcomed back at a heavenly Eucharist – the title is from the early words of the service, in Latin. Angels swing censors, there are rows of pious kings and clergy, and in the distance, descending a flight of steps, is the figure of Christ himself, bearing a lamb on his shoulders. The group at the right foreground contains the man’s soul, who looks directly at the viewer, just as she did in the thirteenth oil painting, Sunrays.

Summary

This is a huge narrative series which varies considerably in content and quality. The oil paintings are beautifully painted, with the effects of light being particularly well shown. Although the charcoal drawings are technically accomplished, most of them are narratively weak, lacking the rich details found in Hogarth’s narrative series, for example, and until the last half dozen, are almost bereft of symbols.

One major problem in reading these paintings is the difficulty in obtaining information about them. Long out of copyright, Janmot’s epic poem does not even appear to be freely available in the original French, and no English translation seems to have been made. There is no point in keeping Janmot’s writings and paintings a closely-guarded secret: that will only secure their place in obscurity.

References

There are several books available in French, notably those written by Élisabeth Hardouin-Fugier who is the leading expert on Janmot and this series.

Wikipedia (in French).

We tend to think that William Blake’s most visionary and radical art was created later in his career, particularly as part of his illustrations to Dante, and that his biblical paintings around 1800 were more conservative. In fact, several of his wildest images were put onto paper for his loyal patron Thomas Butts, as part of Blake’s illustrations to the Bible shortly after 1800. This article examines those, Blake’s extraordinary watercolour paintings of the book of Revelation between about 1800 and 1809.

The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne (c 1803-5) starts this sequence in narrative order, referring to the book of Revelation, chapter 4 verses 2-11. In the King James version, this is a vision of the ‘hereafter’:

And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

I have already noted that the rainbow is reversed, the ‘whirlwind’ effects, and the multiple eyes, in this quite literal depiction of the Bible.

Following this is the painting of Death on a Pale Horse (c 1800) in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England, which I do not show, although it refers to Revelation chapter 6 verse 8.

Angel of the Revelation (c 1803-05) is also known by its biblical reference, as And the Angel Which I Saw Lifted up His Hand to Heaven. This refers to Revelation chapter 10 verses 1-6:

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun (c 1803) in the Brooklyn Museum then depicts Revelation chapter 12 verses 1-4:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

This is one of Blake’s best-known visionary images, a unique chimeral beast with body parts drawn from human, dragon, and caprine sources.

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun (c 1805) in The National Gallery of Art in Washington continues with Revelation chapter 12 verses 12-17:

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The narrative proximity with the previous painting and the next two make these four works almost a graphic story in themselves, as might be seen in a modern graphic novel, for example.

The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea (c 1805) continues with Revelation chapter 13 verses 1, 2 and 7:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

The Number of the Beast is 666 (c 1805) moves on to another familiar section of the book of Revelation, in chapter 13 verses 11, 12 and 18:

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

This completes the sequence of four paintings sometimes known as Blake’s Great Red Dragon series.

The Whore of Babylon (1809) was probably the last of this sequence to be painted by Blake, and refers to the well-known section of Revelation chapter 17 verses 1-4:

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

Sadly, Blake’s purple has been lost as a result of fading. The abominations and filthiness of the whore’s cup flow out in a stream of naked miniature figures, which fall down to the ground by her.

The Angel Michael Binding Satan (“He Cast him into the Bottomless Pit, and Shut him up”) (c 1805) skips ahead to Revelation chapter 20 verses 1-3:

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

The full sequence then concludes with The River of Life (c 1805), which refers to Revelation chapter 22 verses 1-2.

The book of Revelation, with its vivid and phantasmagoric scenes of the apocalypse, has always been a fertile story for an artist’s imagination. But I know of no series of paintings which compares with Blake’s in its masterly, closely-detailed, and very literal account. It inspired some of Blake’s most outstanding and visionary works of art, which even now have not been matched.

Reference

Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.

Plenty of nineteenth century art was ‘difficult’, not just the works of William Blake (at the start) and Odilon Redon (at the end). This article, the first of a new series, looks at the distinctive paintings of one of the most ‘difficult’ of them all, Gustave Moreau (1826–1898).

I have previously considered Moreau’s approach to narrative, and I think may have been a little narrow-minded, even harsh, blaming him in part for the dissolution of narrative, and of history painting itself. Look elsewhere and you will see Moreau classified as a Symbolist, although trying to establish what any Symbolist movement was, is like nailing jelly to a wall.

Moreau’s paintings are at once history, symbolic explorations, as phantasmagoric as the most radical of Blake or Redon, torrents of figures and forms drawn from all human cultures, and from the deeper and more ‘primitive’. They are elaborate, complex, and appear to defy reading. This series takes up that challenge, and I hope will help you to read Moreau’s spectacular paintings, and so enjoy them more.

Moreau was a precocious artist who started copying in the Louvre, in his native Paris, when he was only seventeen. A year later he started to attend a private studio run by François-Édouard Picot, to prepare him for the entrance exam for the École des Beaux-Arts. In Picot’s studio, he learned the methods to which he adhered for the rest of his career: each painting started with a series of drawings, which developed both composition and details. The final drawing was squared up on a grid, to enable its transfer to canvas, where he painted conventionally in oils, using layers.

He was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1846, and determined that he would be a history painter. To that end, he competed twice for the Prix de Rome, which would have taken him to continue his studies in Rome, but on both occasions he was unsuccessful. He therefore left the École des Beaux-Arts in 1849, and started to make a precarious living with small commissioned works including favourite scenes from the plays of Shakespeare. His work changed markedly in 1851, the year that JMW Turner died, when he befriended Théodore Chassériau, a former pupil of Ingres; Moreau set up his first studio near that of Chassériau, and started to paint more ambitious works which he submitted to the Salon.

The Judgement of Paris (1852) is one of Moreau’s early watercolours, showing great promise of things to come. At its heart is a fairly faithful representation of this classical myth, in which Paris (right of centre) is deciding which of Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite is the most fair, and should be awarded the golden apple given by Eris from the Garden of the Hesperides.

More usually an excuse for the depiction of three beautiful nude women, Moreau prefers to provide embellishments which enrich the narrative, such as the putto about to hand the golden apple to the winner, Hermes with his caduceus, and more.

Le Cantique des cantiques (The Song of Songs) (1853) shows a scene based on a very unusual source, the Song of Songs, a long and quite intensely erotic poem in the Old Testament. Clearly it refers to chapter 5 verse 7; with the preceding and following verses, this reads:
I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

The Shulamite woman who says those verses is the woman in white at the centre of the painting, and is being attacked by the city’s watchmen, who have removed her veil. Other commentators state that this proceeds to rape, which is not even implied in the original text, nor are there any hints of that sequel in Moreau’s painting, which remains a puzzle.

In 1853, his parents bought him a house to live in, and use as a studio, in a fashionably artistic neighbourhood: he moved in, and remained there for the rest of his life; this is now the Musée Gustave Moreau, which he established later in life, and still contains the greatest collection of his paintings and drawings.

By this time, Moreau was considering his future as a painter, and exploring various possibilities, inspired mainly by Delacroix and his friend and mentor Chassériau.

He painted at least three different versions of the Pietà, this from 1854.

He also tried his hand at some vivacious equestrian works inspired by Delacroix and Alfred de Dreux, including the watercolour Two Modern Horsewomen (c 1852) above, and Scottish Horseman (c 1854) in oils, below.

Apollo and the Nine Muses (1856) shows another step towards his mature work, immersed in classical myth again. Apollo, a young and surprisingly androgynous figure, sits in the foreground, his distinctive lyre part-hidden under his right foot. To the right of him is a wild rose, with both white flowers and red hips. The muses cluster on a small mound behind that, equipped for and engaged in their respective arts. Moreau has not so much composed them into position as compressed them into a mass, in which it is difficult to distinguish even heads.

That same year, his friend and mentor Chassériau died at the age of only 37. Moreau was devastated by this, and decided to travel to Italy to complete his education as a painter and resolve his future. From October 1857 to June 1858, he copied Renaissance paintings in Rome, then moved on to Florence, Milan, and Venice. He finally returned to Paris in September 1859, having made about a thousand copies in less than two years. Moreau also met and made friends with several other artists, including Degas and Tissot.

In addition to the copies which he made in Italy, he painted some works of his own, including this landscape, which I think should be titled View of the Villa Borghese (1858), although most sources claim it is of the (unknown) Villa Borthese.

Over this period, Moreau had been working on several paintings, including one to commemorate Chassériau, and this preparatory drawing of Hesiod and the Muse (1857). It has also been claimed that he had started to paint some of his later and still unfinished works, including The Suitors, although Cooke considers that the paintings themselves were not started until after his return from Italy.

He had been thinking a lot about history painting over this period, and around the time of his return to Paris in 1859, he resolved to reform history painting with a new approach, one which dispensed with schools in its pursuit of “the art of lofty poetic and imaginative conceptions”, which was actually not about historical fact, but about myth and legend.

Hesiod and the Muses (1860) is probably the first of Moreau’s ‘new’ history paintings, and the first of a series of works in which he shows Hesiod, generally considered to be the first written poet in the Western tradition to exist as a real person, and to play an active role in his poetry. Hesiod is shown to the left of centre, as a young man holding a laurel staff in his right hand. Once again the muses are squeezed in together so that they are hard to distinguish, although I count nine of them. One is on her knee, presenting Hesiod with a laurel wreath.

There are four swans on the ground, and one in flight above Hesiod, a winged Cupid sat on the left wing of Pegasus, and a brilliant white star directly above the winged horse. However, the Cupid and Pegasus were only added in about 1883, when the canvas was extended. Cooke considers that, irrespective of the title, this addition confirms the painting’s amorous atmosphere.

In 1860, he met his mistress and muse Alexandrine Dureux (whom he never married, both remaining single) and set her up in a nearby flat, where she lived until her death in 1890.

The next article will consider the major paintings which he probably started in around 1860: The Suitors, The Daughters of Thespius, and Tyrtaeus Singing during the Combat. They were the immediate precursors to Œdipus and the Sphinx, which struck like a thunderclap in 1864.

References

Cooke P (2014) Gustave Moreau, History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 20433 9.
Mathieu P-L (1998, 2010) Gustave Moreau, the Assembler of Dreams, PocheCouleur. ISBN 978 2 867 70194 8.

For all his extraordinary artistic vision, William Blake had a strong sense of design, developed during his apprenticeship as an engraver, and honed when he was self-publishing his illuminated books. In this article, I’d like to take a quick tour through some of Blake’s paintings which show the strongest influence from design, rather than just composition. There are many others, but these are among my favourites.

Christ Appearing to His Disciples/Apostles After the Resurrection is one of Blake’s large colour print series from 1795, which refers to the gospel of Luke, chapter 24 verses 36-40:
And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.” But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

The Blasphemer (c 1800) is, like most of the rest of my examples, taken from series of watercolour paintings made for Thomas Butts. This refers to the Old Testament book of Leviticus, chapter 24 verse 23:
And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.

The grim background is given in verses 10-16:
And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; and the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:) and they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, “Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”

The Death of the Virgin (1803) refers to an apocryphal account of the death of the Virgin Mary, which Rossetti later accompanied with a quotation from the gospel of John, chapter 19 verse 27 (during the crucifixion):
Then saith he to the disciple, “Behold thy mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

Its rainbow is painted in the correct, Newtonian order, suggesting that it was painted before Blake switched to inverted rainbows in about 1803.

Satan in his Original Glory: ‘Thou wast Perfect till Iniquity was Found in Thee’ (c 1805) refers to Ezekiel, chapter 28 verses 14-15, where the King or Prince of Tyrus is generally taken to mean Satan:
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

David Delivered out of Many Waters ‘He Rode upon the Cherubim’ (c 1805) refers to Psalm 18, verses 4, 10, and 16, in which David calls to God for salvation from his enemies:
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

The Crucifixion: ‘Behold Thy Mother’ (c 1805) is a traditional and popular scene from the Passion, and refers to the gospel of John, chapter 19 verses 26-27:
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, “Woman, behold thy son!” Then saith he to the disciple, “Behold thy mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

The Entombment (c 1805) refers to the gospel of Luke, chapter 23 verses 53 and 55:
And he took it [the body of Jesus] down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

The Angels hovering over the body of Christ in the Sepulchre; Christ in the sepulchre, guarded by angels (c 1805) elaborates the gospel accounts of Christ’s body in the sepulchre with reference to the description of the tabernacle in Exodus, chapter 25 verse 20:
And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
This may have been in the light of Hebrews, chapter 9 verse 5:
And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.

Job Confessing his Presumption to God who Answers from the Whirlwind (c 1803-5) is an early example of Blake’s ‘divine whirlwind’, and refers to Job, chapter 40 verses 3-6 (and I add 7 too):
Then Job answered the Lord, and said, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.”
Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said, “Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.”

The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne (c 1803–5) refers to the book of Revelation, chapter 4 verses 2-11:
And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

This appears to have been painted after about 1803, as its rainbow is reversed.

Jacob’s Ladder, or Jacob’s Dream (1799-1806) shows Blake’s innovative use of a spiral staircase to heaven, and refers to Genesis, chapter 28 verses 10-19:

And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve (1808) is from Blake’s slightly later illustrations to Milton’s Paradise Lost, and refers to book 4, lines 325-535. Blake painted several slight variations of this work, each based on the same strong design.

My final selection is not a traditional watercolour, but one of Blake’s late glue tempera paintings, Count Ugolino and His Sons in Prison (c 1826). This refers to Dante’s Inferno, canto 33 verses 43-75. Blake had also planned to incorporate a similar painting in his illustrations to Dante, which he was working on at the time of his death. In that series, the image exists only as a pencil sketch.

Blake’s artistic design had limited influence over other painters during the nineteenth century, but was a much greater influence on twentieth century visual art.

Reference

Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.

The finished paintings of Gustave Moreau (1826–1898) before 1864 showed promise, but despite his aim of radically changing history painting, they were hardly revolutionary. Nor did they have much impact in Paris. However, over this early period in his career, he started three much larger paintings which he never completed. This article looks at those, and what we can read in them: The Suitors, The Daughters of Thespius, and Tyrtaeus Singing during the Combat.

The Suitors (c 1852-1885, unfinished)

There is still controversy over when Moreau started work on this large painting, but it was probably around 1852, before he went to Italy. Cooke considers that he did not work on it in earnest until nearer 1860, after he had returned from Italy, and had determined to change history painting. At that stage, it seems to have consisted of a smaller canvas, and he discontinued work on that by about 1864, only to return to it, perhaps intermittently, and then more seriously in the early 1880s, by which time the canvas had been enlarged considerably. He seems to have finally abandoned it in around 1885.

Using drawings made by Moreau in 1860, Cooke argues that the original work was slightly larger than shown in this detail, although even this area changed considerably during Moreau’s later re-working.

The painting shows the scene in Book 22 of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus returns home to his palace in Ithaca and massacres the many suitors who have occupied it in their efforts to court Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. The overall episode is quite complex in narrative, but Moreau opts for the climax, in which Odysseus is killing the suitors, rather than any of the more involved sub-stories leading up to that.

There are two prominent figures: Odysseus, who was originally holding a bow and standing proud at the top of steps on the right, and Minerva (Pallas Athena) who is in mid-air in the middle of the painting, as Odysseus’ tutelary goddess. By the time that the canvas had been enlarged and repainted, Odysseus was lost in the background (he is now shown, still holding his bow, in the doorway at the back, with an owl over his head), and Minerva has become pre-eminent.

Moreau justified this alteration (his mother was deaf, so he wrote notes to her providing invaluable explanations) by typifying Odysseus as showing ‘material and brutal force’, but Minerva represented ‘wisdom, moral force’. The suitors, now filling the canvas in their suffering and death, were ‘Last Judgement figures fleeing before the divine thunderbolt’ of Minerva (quotations from Cooke, p 46).

Moreau’s most immediate influence was Thomas Couture’s Romans during the Decadence (1847), although clearly there were also paintings or engravings of the Last Judgement in his mind at a later time.

The painting still contains much of interest: the figure at the right, dressed in blue, where Odysseus should have been, was copied in the Uffizi in Florence in 1858; the central figure leaning on his lyre is Phemios, the singer of epic poetry, who was spared at the request of Telemacus, and personifies Greece, fearlessly defying fate; at the far left, two figures remain calm, and are the more beautiful for remaining so (according to Moreau).

Fascinating though these details are, the painting was clearly not achieving the effect that Moreau desired, and after enlargement and repainting has merely become confused, its original protagonist lost in the background, its story a muddle.

The Daughters Of Thespius (c 1853-, unfinished)

Probably started slightly later than The Suitors, and abandoned by 1864, Moreau’s original title uses the name Thestius, which is accepted to be an error for Thespius. He was the legendary founder and king of Thespiae in Boeotia, who with his wife Megamede, and the assistance perhaps of some mistresses, allegedly fathered fifty daughters.

When they reached marriageable age, Thespius offered them as a prize to Heracles for killing a lion. Although there are different accounts, that shown here is that Heracles slept with forty-nine of the daughters in a single night, the fiftieth refusing, and being sent off to serve as a virgin priestess of a temple to Heracles. Pseudo-Apollodorus lists them all, together with the names of the sons that they bore as a consequence.

Moreau sets this very dodgy story in what appears to be a tepidarium, inspired by his friend and mentor Chassériau’s painting The Tepidarium (1853), which was acclaimed when shown at the Salon. Once again, it appears that Moreau’s nearly finished original canvas was enlarged later, and that work on the enlarged area was then abandoned too.

This detail shows most of Moreau’s original canvas, with the naked figure of Heracles in the midst of the fifty naked daughters. Cooke notes the air of tension and anxiety between them – in the circumstances, perhaps not unsurprisingly. Shortly before his death, Moreau wrote of the feelings of Heracles, which he described as ‘attentive and anxious’ amid the ‘superb and terrible herd’.

Probably after the canvas had been extended, Moreau included the cosmic symbols of the sun and moon atop the pillars which frame Heracles. But I think that the artist recognised that this painting was an unfortunate detour along a road which only get more sordid the further that he travelled.

Tyrtaeus Singing During the Combat (1860-, unfinished)

The last of these three paintings to be started, Moreau seems to have worked on this in the early 1860s, abandoned it, then returned to have it enlarged in about 1883, and work it further for a period, before finally giving it up altogether.

This detail shows much of the original painting, which is full to bursting with androgynous and near-naked young men. The priestess-like figure to the left of the centre appears to be Tyrtaeus, an elegiac Greek poet who lived around the time of the Second Messenian War, in the latter part of the seventh century BCE. He had strong military links and following, and his verse exhorted the Spartans to fight bravely against the Messenians. He is shown here in action, inspiring the young Spartan warriors to victory.

The strange collage-like effect is a combination of Moreau’s emphasis on establishing the form of his figures, and I suspect edge-enhancement in the image’s processing.

This painting has elicited speculation as to how much Moreau may have identified with Tyrtaeus (as he seems to with other classical poets, such as Hesiod), and whether the figures should be read as being homoerotic. The latter does not appear to have been proposed with respect to The Suitors; before the depth and duration of Moreau’s relationship with his muse and mistress was appreciated, this may have been more reasonable. Given The Daughters Of Thespius, it all now seems unnecessary.

The Abduction of Deianeira (c 1860)

In illustrating his case about Moreau’s rejection of contemporary approaches to narrative (history, mythology) painting, Cooke uses the example of The Death of Nessus (1870), one of Jules Élie Delaunay’s most brilliant and successful paintings. Cooke argues that it shows the theatricality which Moreau sought to distance himself from. It is a fortuitous choice, as in about 1860, a decade before his friend Delaunay painted that work, Moreau appears to have been working on his own version. You can see Delaunay’s magnificent painting here (which is sadly not available to include here).

This drawing, squared up and ready to transfer to canvas for painting, shows a highly theatrical version of the same motif: in the foreground, Nessus the centaur, who has been abducting Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, has been struck by a poisoned arrow from the bow of Heracles, in the right distance. This is almost the exact instant, and a very similar composition, to that of Delaunay.

In the period between his return from Italy until 1863, Moreau still seems to have been considering just how he was going to change history painting. The evidence, from the finished paintings which I showed in the previous article, and from these unfinished works here, is that he had yet to arrive at his solution.

The next article will examine his paintings from the mid 1860s, which show his divergence.

References

Cooke P (2014) Gustave Moreau, History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 20433 9.
Mathieu P-L (1998, 2010) Gustave Moreau, the Assembler of Dreams, PocheCouleur. ISBN 978 2 867 70194 8.