William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

illustrated '' Paradise Lost'' more often than any other work by John Milton, and illustrated Milton's work more often than that of any other writer. The illustrations demonstrate his critical engagement with the text, specifically his efforts to redeem the "errors" he perceived in his predecessor's work.

Description and provenance

The Thomas set The paintings of the Thomas set are each approximately 10 x 8.25 inches. They were commissioned by the Reverend Joseph Thomas at an unrecorded date, sometime before 1807. Although the sheets were trimmed at some time, obliterating the date from several, some still retain the date of 1807, establishing the year of their completion. Thomas' grandson inherited them from his father, and sold them at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in 1872. By 1876 they were in the collection of Alfred Aspland, who by 1885 took them to Sotheby's again, dispersing the set among several buyers. Henry Huntington reunited the works in 1914, and today they are still in the collection of the

Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...

. The Butts set The dimensions of the Butts set, also known as the "large set", are 19.5x15.5 inches, nearly twice that of the Thomas set. Dated 1808, they were commissioned from Blake by his patron Thomas Butts, who also commissioned many paintings on biblical themes from Blake. In the early 1850s, Butts' son Thomas Butts Jr. offered the individual paintings for sale at several auctions, resulting in the dispersal of the set. Today it remains divided between four museums. Nine of the paintings were sold at Messrs. Foster in 1853 to J. C. Strange, passing through several other hands before they were acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, their present owner. The other three were sold to one "Fuller" at an unknown date, from whom they passed to H.A.J. Munro. Munro further complicated matters by selling the three paintings to separate buyers at Christie's in 1868. No. 1 was acquired by the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in 1869, No. 2 by Henry Huntington in 1916, and No. 10 by the

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of ...

in 1966. The Linnell set The Linnell set is incomplete – it contains only ''Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve'', ''The Creation of Eve'' and ''Michael Foretells the Crucifixion''. These are exactly the same as their corresponding entries in the Butts set in both size and composition, the major difference being their loose handling of the watercolor. Like the Linnell set of William Blake's ''Illustrations of the Book of Job'', these were commissioned by Blake's patron

John Linnell John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...

, and traced by Linnell from the Butts set. An entry in Linnell's journal dates the commission to 9 May 1822. Currently ''Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve'' and ''The Creation of Eve'' are in the collection of the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, and ''Michael Foretells the Crucifixion'' is in the collection of the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

Analysis

There are twelve plates in each of the '' Paradise Lost'' sets, one for each of the books in the poem. While some of these, such as ''Satan, Sin and Death: Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell'', depict specific scenes from the epic; others, such as ''Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve'', are syntheses of several scenes. In the latter case, Blake employed visual barriers to separate the elements from different scenes, such as the arc of the bower in ''Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve''. In Blake's mythology, Albion's fall from a divine

androgyny Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in ...

to a sexual nature divides him into the Four Zoas, their spectres (representative of hypocritical morality), and their emanations (female halves). In the ''Paradise Lost'' illustrations, Adam is analogous to the fallen Albion, Satan to Adam's

Spectre Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to: Religion and spirituality * Vision (spirituality) * Apparitional experience * Ghost Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...

, and Eve to Adam's emanation.Dunbar, p. 38

Table of Illustrations

Citations

References

* *Butlin, Martin. ''The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake''. 2 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981. * *

External links

Annotated illustrations and description of Blake's illustrations of ''Paradise Lost''
at the

William Blake Archive The William Blake Archive is a digital humanities project started in 1994, a first version of the website was launched in 1996.{{cite journal, last1=Crawford, first1=Kendal, last2=Levy, first2=Michelle, journal=RIDE: A Review Journal for Digital E ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Illustrations of Paradise Lost, William Blake's Poems illustrated by William Blake John Milton Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve Angels in art Drawings depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus