Mad Engraver Of The Apocalypse - Alternative View

Mad Engraver Of The Apocalypse - Alternative View
Mad Engraver Of The Apocalypse - Alternative View

Video: Mad Engraver Of The Apocalypse - Alternative View

Video: Mad Engraver Of The Apocalypse - Alternative View
Video: Engraver - The Last Victim [Lyric Video] 2024, March
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This man wrote amazing philosophical poems, which are often quoted in our time … But much more the Englishman William Blake is known as a talented engraver artist. And not just an artist … He had the ability to see parallel worlds, that is, he was, as they say in our time, a visionary … And after his death he appeared to his wife as a ghost.

Since childhood, Willie surprised his family with his reflections on the world order. So, he argued that death is just a transition from one room to another … And he also told adults that he saw warriors in the sky with swords and spears, and angels with sparkling wings on the branches of trees … Once the boy said that he saw the Lord himself, stuck his head out the window … Willie transferred his visions to paper.

When William became an apprentice to the engraver James Basir, he sent him to paint from life at Westminster Abbey. There, a medieval procession of monks appeared to the young man, he heard the sounds of a chorale and organ …

Blake was convinced of the existence of a parallel world, where everything is different from ours. Striving to comprehend his laws, he learned to write from right to left. The artist was not much interested in reality, he plunged into fantastic spheres, the Atlanteans and druids became the heroes of his creations, who appeared to him when he was in an altered state of consciousness, as they would say today … When he was interfered with during a trance, he came into a wild rage - like he almost pushed a schoolboy off the cornice, who decided to tease him … Many considered him crazy, and so it went on until the end of his life …

Blake's wife was Catherine Boucher. The girl was completely illiterate. William himself taught her to read and write, and also taught her to make engravings from ready-made prints on a machine. Catherine has been a faithful friend and helper for him all his life.

After the death of his brother Robert, also an artist, from tuberculosis, Blake saw his ghost, who gave him some very useful advice on the art of engraving. Thanks to this, William invented a special illuminated technique, or the technique of relief imprinting, when letters and drawings on etchings are not embossed, but become embossed due to the etching of the surrounding areas of the copper plate with acid.

Blake studied the works of the mystic and visionary Swedenborg, was fond of neo-Platonism - but did not become anyone's follower. His best paintings on religious themes, such as The Dream of Jacob or Adam and Eve Find the Body of Abel, are distinguished by special, unconventional lighting. According to Blake, it was the "light of other worlds" that helped him create masterpieces. Only a true artist can access the contours of that other, transcendent world, he assured:

Whoever does not see the outline cannot draw it, Promotional video:

Neither refractory nor fuselage nor blake.

For the contouring method, you are happy to eat the artist, But the madman sees the contours and writes as it is.

Blake created several "illuminated manuscripts" by engraving his poems and drawings with his own hand. One of his works was "The Bible of Hell, Collected in Visions of Night", a kind of alternative Old Testament, where God appeared as a demon, and the act of creating the world - a great fall …

Once, the artist recalls, he saw in his house "a scaly, speckled, horrible-looking creature with a human body and a flea's head, descending the stairs." The vision terrified him that he rushed to run away from the house, where his eyes were looking … Later he embodied the hellish vision in one of his paintings - "Spirit of the Flea".

For 16 years, Blake worked on the eschatological poems Milton and Jerusalem, which were also collections of prints. These texts began to be deciphered only in our time. It took almost 17 years to create the engraving "The Last Judgment - Vision of the Apocalypse." On a single copper board, the artist managed to place more than a thousand characters between the tongues of hellfire …

William Blake died on August 12, 1827, at the age of 69, in the midst of his work on illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. Not long before that he had finished illustrating the Book of Job. Doctors have never been able to find the cause of the artist's death. Perhaps he was taken with them by those otherworldly forces with which he constantly communicated during his lifetime.

After his death, the widow Katherine told me more than once that the ghost of her husband came to her and gave various recommendations. So, if they came to her to buy some of Blake's prints, she always said that she would first consult with her husband …

Interestingly, many years after his death, Blake was canonized by the Catholic Church. And this despite the fact that in his works, especially early ones, he opposed religious dogmatism!

In 1949, Australian authorities established the William Blake Prize for contributions to religious art. And in 1957, a monument to the Blakes couple was unveiled at Westminster Abbey.

TRINITY MARGARITA