William Blake Exhibition At Tate Britain.

I had a grand day out in London yesterday at the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain. It was a nice sunny morning when I met my friend Dave at Westbury station and we caught the 10.05 train to London, changing at Salisbury. Once we arrived at Waterloo, we took a taxi for the short journey to Pimlico where we enjoyed a spot of lunch by the river. The pub was the Morpeth Arms which was very pleasant, if somewhat expensive. Then it was time to make our way to the Tate Britain gallery.

It is more than 30 years since I last visited the Tate, that was for a Salvador Dali exhibition and this is only the third time I have been to London for a major exhibition of any sort. The last time was in 1999 for Monet at the Royal Academy. I’m not an expert on art in general or Blake in particular by any means, so don’t be expecting any great insights into Blake from me. What first aroused my interest in Blake is his influence on people I admire, such as Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and most especially Van Morrison. I wrote an article about Blake & Van a couple of years ago. You can read it below if you want.

The exhibition has been open since September and I was quite surprised at how busy it still is. It was very warm in there and quite dimly lit to preserve the pictures. The rooms were crowded, and you almost had to queue up to see some of the exhibits. In room 1 almost the first picture I saw was Albion Rose from 1793. I first became aware of this picture when it was used as an album cover by The Strawbs. Quite a few rock bands have used Blake’s work on album covers. Albion is the ancient name for Britain. I think Blake based it loosely on a picture by Leonardo Da Vinci called Vitruvian Man. There were lots of pencil drawings in Room 1 from the time Blake was a student at the Royal Academy.

Room 2 has many examples of Blake’s prints and engravings. Blake actually invented a new form of print making called ‘relief etching’ which allowed him to combine text and pictures and produce his wonderful illuminated little books.

 We shouldn’t forget the help he had from his wife Catherine or Kate as he called her. Without her assistance he couldn’t have produced these tiny little books. It must have been painstaking arduous work. Also, Blake’s work was often very political. He was inspired by revolutions in France & America. If he had been more famous, he might have been thrown in prison as a troublemaker, or alternatively locked up as a lunatic because of his visionary work.

Room 3 has the work from the period when Blake had rich benefactors who bought his paintings and gave him the independence to be as creative as he liked. 

There are illustrations from the Bible, Shakespeare & Milton. Blake often fell out with his patrons, especially William Hayley. I think we were in this room when it was nice to meet up with a fellow Van Morrison fan called Age who had come from the Netherlands for the day to see the exhibition.

Room 4 is work from the period when Blake held his first disastrous exhibitions. He also hoped to create frescoes on a huge scale. These hopes were never realised. There are projections on the wall of what he hoped to produce. There are books in this exhibition such as his illustrations of Night Thoughts by Edward Young and The Grave by Robert Blair. Also, I particularly liked the Elegy In A Churchyard by Thomas Gray illustrations.

Room 5 is called A New Kind Of Man and concerns his last years when he produced such work as his book Jerusalem and he illustrated Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Book Of Job. I think this was one of the happiest periods in his career when he finally got some deserved recognition.

I thought it was a fabulous exhibition. It is huge and for a serious person who wants to study Blake in detail, one visit isn’t enough. I think I was expecting much bigger pictures. I was surprised at how tiny some of the exhibits were. You need a magnifying glass to look at some of them. Painting is only one aspect of Blake’s greatness. He was also a poet and I didn’t attempt to try and read all the text. He was also a free thinker, a visionary and a mystic. If you really want to study Blake in depth its not necessary  to go to exhibitions, but I am very glad I did.

In the shop, because the exhibition ends in a few days they had reduced the posters to only £1.00 which was great.  After the hot stuffy atmosphere inside It was nice to get outside into the fresh January air. We took a leisurely stroll along the river and found a nice pub just past the Houses of Parliament. It was great to have a bit of a sit down. When we left there, it was just a short walk across Westminster Bridge to another pub we knew called The Hole In The Wall. Eventually it was time to head home. That’s when the trouble started. Due to signal failures and cancellations Waterloo station was in chaos with thousands of commuters trying to work out what was going on. Finally, a train to Salisbury was announced and it seemed like the whole world tried to get aboard. It was impossible to get a seat. We had to stand in a packed corridor all the way to Basingstoke. Anyway, we finally got back to Westbury and despite all the hassles with trains I’m really pleased I made the effort to see this wonderful exhibition. PS, Thanks to Dave for taking most of the great pictures.