Author accepted manuscript of an article published in Religion and

the arts 22.1-2 (2018), pp. 16-39. Special Issue: Picturing Paradise in

Nineteenth-Century British and American Art, edited by James

Romaine and Rachel Hostetter Smith.

Published article available via:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15

685292-02201001

Doi: 10.1163/15685292-02201001

RE-VIEWING WILLIAM BLAKE’S PARADISE REGAINED (C.1816-20)

NAOMI BILLINGSLEY*

The University of Manchester, England

Abstract

This article presents a revisionist reading of William Blake’s (1757-1827) twelve

watercolor designs for John Milton’s “Paradise Regained” (c.1816-20). The designs

have previously been dismissed in critical commentary as of little interest to Blake

scholarship, or regarded as a narrative merely about Christ’s human nature. This

article argues that they are also a visual expression of Blake’s cosmology; it is

1

proposed that the designs express a positive cosmology, in which Paradise is not so

much to be regained, as re-viewed. The essay argues that Blake emphasizes Christ’s

divinity in the designs and that he is depicted as an immanent, sacramental, presence

in the world; hence, the world that Christ inhabits in the designs is a Paradise. The

article begins by outlining its reading of Blake’s view of the material world, and

moves on to discuss the “Paradise Regained” designs in detail, with a particular focus

on The Baptism of Christ, the opening subject of the series, which establishes the

positive cosmology presented throughout the series.

Keywords

Baptism of Christ, William Blake, Christ, cosmology, John Milton, Paradise

Regained, Satan, Temptations of Christ

Blake and the material world

“The Natural Man is at Enmity with God”

“Natural Objects always did & now do Weaken deaden & obliterate

Imagination in Me” 1

“This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision I see Every thing I paint In

This World, but Every body does not see alike … to the Eyes of the Man of

2

Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is So he Sees … To Me

This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or Imagination …”

-- Blake 702

William Blake’s statements about the material world are, like his views on many

topics, seemingly contradictory. On the one hand, in statements such as his

annotations to Wordsworth, he appears to present a negative, dualistic worldview, in

which he seeks to be liberated from the natural world by Imagination. But elsewhere,

such as in his letter to Trusler (a dissatisfied patron who complained that Blake’s

work was too fanciful), he expresses a very positive vision of the world, in which

Imagination’s role is not to liberate the individual from the world but is immanent in

the cosmos. (Imagination is, for Blake, the highest state of being, associated with

divinity, as I explain below). Consequently, there are conflicting views in Blake

scholarship about whether his conception of the material world is positive or negative.

This is not the place for a review of that debate.2 The view held here is that

the apparent contradiction in Blake’s views about nature has to do with levels of

perception or modes of engagement with the world (cf. Frye 21, 42; Hutchings 63-

75). We see the world as a mundane state from which we seek to be liberated if we

behold it with a mundane mode of sight. But if we view the world through eyes

formed by Imagination, we recognize its true state as a living, divine reality. As

Blake wrote in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1793), “If the doors of perception

were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite” (39).

This essay shows how Blake presents a positive cosmology in his “Paradise

Regained” watercolors.3 If we do not always see the world as such, it is failure of

vision on our part, not the stuff of nature itself, that leads to a negative worldview. I

3

also demonstrate that Blake’s pictorial methods in this series invite the viewer into the

positive worldview presented, and hence to cleanse his/her “doors of perception” and

thereby see the world as Paradise.

Blake’s Paradise Regained watercolors 4

There is no record of a commission for Blake’s “Paradise Regained” watercolors

(Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge)5; the twelve designs are dated from

analysis of style and watermarks to c.1816-206 but they were not purchased from

Blake until 1825, by his friend and fellow-artist John Linnell. Blake may have

produced the series speculatively, or it could have been intended for, but rejected by,

one of the patrons for whom Blake had made other Milton designs from 1807.7

Presumably, like his depictions of other Milton poems, the “Paradise Regained”

watercolors were intended to be a stand-alone series, not to accompany an edition of

the text, thus giving Blake greater freedom to select subjects (without the restrictions

of considerations such as evenly spacing designs throughout the printed text), and to

use the designs as a vehicle for his own re-telling of Milton’s narrative.

Several Blake scholars have been dismissive of the quality and importance of

this series within Blake’s oeuvre. William Michael Rossetti (who first catalogued

Blake’s pictorial works for Alexander Gilchrist’s 1863 Life of William Blake) wrote

that in this series “Blake has been less inspired than usual, and the result

comparatively tame” (11). A century later, David Bindman stated that “[t]he series as

a whole … lacks the energy of the other Miltonic illustrations.”8 Rossetti does not

elaborate on his assessment (the comment is in private correspondence rather than his

4

Blake catalogue), although he acknowledges that Linnell had shown the works to him

“as being more than usually beautiful” (11); Bindman suggests that the poem itself

did not excite Blake, because it lacks the drama and ambiguity of Paradise Lost

(Artist 196). In contrast, Kathleen Raine felt that Blake had illustrated “Paradise

Regained” with “visionary insight,” although she does not discuss the designs in any

detail (2. 198).

The designs have been examined more closely in studies of Blake’s Milton

designs by Pamela Dunbar, Bette Charlene Werner, and J.M.Q. Davies. These

scholars focus on Blake’s critical engagement with Milton’s poem; here, the standard

reading of the series is a narrative of Christ as a human figure, undergoing spiritual

development, reflecting Milton’s presentation of Christ as the obedient man who

overturns the disobedience of Adam told in “Paradise Lost” (which Blake had

illustrated in 1807, Butlin 529 and 1808, Butlin 536).9

Blake’s engagement with the poem is of course a crucial dimension to the

designs, but, as I demonstrate, Blake also uses the designs as vehicles for his own

mythos. Moreover, I disagree with the standard reading that Blake presents the

narrative as an overturn of the Fall; as I have already stated, I contend that in these

designs, Blake shows us a vision of the world as a place of “Imagination & Vision” --

a Paradise already present but which not all, as Blake wrote to Trusler, “see alike.”

Hence, I present a revisionist reading of the series, which challenges the dismissive

assessments of Rossetti and Bindman, and is an alternative (but not mutually

exclusive) interpretation to the Christ-as-human drama focus of the Blake and Milton

studies.

5

Setting the scene: The Baptism of Christ

The series begins with The Baptism of Christ (fig. 1). This is the third time that Blake

depicted this subject, having previously produced versions for his patron Thomas

Butts in two series of biblical pictures (c. 1799-1800, Rhode Island School of Design

Museum; Butlin 415; c. 1803, The Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; Butlin

475). 10 This was a popular subject for illustrators of “Paradise Regained,” which

tended to be presented in a sentimental and theatrical mode, dominated by angels with

voluminous drapery and with Christ as a passive figure, standing with his head bowed

as the action takes place around him.11 Blake’s Baptism design for “Paradise

Regained” is more schematized, with flattened perspective and a very narrow focus

on Christ and the attendant figures; nevertheless, the landscape depicted is important.

The composition is based on interplay between circularity and verticality. The

circular form follows the line of the landscape that rises above the water, and passes

up and around the heads of Christ, John the Baptist, and the attendant adults. This

circle is ruptured by a series of verticals: the lightning coming from above, the

Baptist’s arm stretching upwards, and Christ’s feet standing below the circle in the

waters of the Jordan. Defying these two basic structural forms, Satan and the serpent

are dramatically foreshortened, fleeing almost horizontally from the scene.12

Close examination of the original work, and the high resolution image

available via the Blake Archive, reveal that there are two arcs at the lower edge of the

circle: a rugged one, marking off a strip of grey hills above the waterline, then above

it, a line which is strangely precise, too regular to be the line of a landscape, but

following the arc of the grey hills (fig. 2). Between the upper line and the grey hills is

a whitish space, which appears to be neither landscape nor sky. I propose that this

6

line marks the sphere of the sky -- the firmament of Heaven -- as in the Ccreation

account in Genesis 1. 7: “And God made the firmament, and divided the waters

which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament

…”13 Thus, with a simple line, Blake transforms the scene into a cosmic portrait in

which, as at Creation, an act involving water inaugurates a new phase in cosmic

history.14 Here, Christ is not beginning his journey in a fallen world; rather, the world

is as at Creation, and sanctified by his presence.

The circular form manifesting an act of creation recalls Blake’s Ancient of

Days (fig. 3). Originally created as the frontispiece to the illuminated poem “Europe,

A Prophecy” (1794), this was an image that Blake returned to throughout his life, both

by directly recycling the print (he is said to have been coloring the Whitworth copy,

illustrated, on his deathbed), and by invoking its motifs in other designs. The design

depicts a bearded figure, representing God the Father, crouching in a fiery orb,

reaching down with his right arm, measuring the shadowy world below with a pair of

dividers.15 This figure is confined by the circle of the sun, even as he reaches out of it,

and he seems to be subject to the winds of the created world, even as he is imposing

(or attempting to impose) his design upon it. This Creator is the embodiment of

rationality, and is often identified with Blake’s mythological figure Urizen, who

symbolizes reason (his name is apparently a play on “your-reason”).16 The

inadequacy of the Urizen-Father’s attempt to control the world through reason makes

this an unsettling portrait.

By contrast, in The Baptism, Christ elegantly governs the whole structure of

the image: his palms seem to be wielding the force which descends from the sky,

rupturing the division between heaven and earth recorded in Genesis; below, he

stands at the same level -- even slightly lower -- than the attendant figures, thus

7

further emphasizing the presence of divinity in the world, and so including the two

children (who are not encompassed in the sphere) in the brotherhood of his

fellowship. Christ is in harmony with the world rather than imposing order upon it,

and unlike the confined figure of the Father in The Ancient of Days, he is effortlessly

and elegantly at once inside and outside the dome of heaven. Whereas in Genesis, the

firmament divides heaven and earth, Christ is uniting them -- the only division here is

the fleeing figure of Satan.

I read Blake’s careful composition in this design as representing Christ as

immanent Imagination or Vision, making this a portrait of the world as described in

the letter to Trusler quoted above. Christ is the creative force of the world, not limited

by created space, but present in everything. For Blake, to see as Trusler does is only

to see the superficial, whereas to see the world as a “World of Imagination and

Vision” is to see reality. “Imagination” is a concept that Blake associates with Christ;

in the late aphorisms of the so-called “Laocoön” plate (c.1826-27), Blake succinctly

expresses an idea that had long been central in his mythos:

The Eternal Body of Man is The IMAGINATION.

God himself | ישע [Yeshua] Jesus

that is | we are his

The Divine Body | Members

(Blake 273)A

A [NOTE TO TYPESETTER: This quotation should be presented thus:

]

8

What we see in The Baptism of Christ then, is Christ as Imagination, immanent in the

world, making this a kind of portrait of the earthly Paradise that can be envisaged

when we see with “Imagination and Vision.”

At the bottom of the design, the waters of the Jordan flow into the viewer’s

space from the distributary below Christ’s feet, so that we are invited into the picture

of Paradise presented here -- a Paradise constituted by Christ’s presence. In this, we

share in the community seen in the attendant figured in the picture. The joyful figures

in The Baptism demonstrate the appropriate responses to Christ, and their different

ages and genders represent all humanity. The old man on the right, however, is

ambiguous -- his hands are together in prayer, but his face is mournful and he is

somewhat aloof from the scene. He seems to be a Trusler-like figure, who needs to

learn to see with “Imagination and Vision” and hence represents the alternative to

sharing in the joyful fellowship engendered by Christ.

The other key figure in The Baptism is of course the Baptist. As the prophet

of Christ, he is an archetypal man of Imagination in Blake’s mythos: he appears as

such on the frontispiece to Blake’s first illuminated book, “All Religions Are One”

(c.1788), with his words “The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness.”17 As David

Erdman proposes, this is apparently Blake identifying himself as a Baptist-like

prophetic figure (24). In the “Paradise Regained” design, there is half-mirroring

between Christ and the Baptist: Christ faces out of the picture, the Baptist into it;

Christ holds his arms downward, the Baptist his upward. Although the Baptist pours

water onto Christ and reaches dramatically into the sky, it is Christ himself who

seems to wield the forces coming from heaven. That the Baptist has his back to the

viewer makes him our way in to the picture; his stance invites us to mirror Christ.

Like the Baptist, and his disciple Blake, we should channel the creative energy of

9

Imagination and Vision, just as the Baptist channels the lightning and water wielded

by Christ in The Baptism. In this single image, then, Blake has depicted a Paradisal

cosmology, in which the world is in harmony through the immanence of Christ the

Imagination. The designs that follow reinforce this point by depicting Satan’s

fruitless efforts to upset this state in his temptations of Christ.

The narrative continues: temptations and triumph

The series continues with The First Temptation (or Christ tempted by Satan to turn

the stones into bread, fig. 4). Here, Blake establishes a dramatic inverse patterning

between Christ and Satan that continues throughout the series, contrasting the futility

of Satan’s temptations with Christ’s effortless resistance. Blake reinforces this theme

in the settings of the pictures, in which he further emphasizes Christ’s cosmic

presence. In The First Temptation, the opposition between Satan and Christ is

represented in their gestures: with one hand, Satan points to his mouth, and with the

other, down to the stones that he tempts Christ to turn into bread; Christ also points to

his mouth, but with his other hand, points up to heaven. Blake is depicting Jesus’s

reply to Satan:

Man lives not by bread only, but each word

Proceeding from the mouth of God 18

This subject was popular in illustrations for “Paradise Regained,” and Blake appears

to have borrowed elements from John Thurston’s design, engraved by James Heath

10

for an 1805 anthology of English poetry edited by Samuel Johnson and J. Aikin. Like

Thurston, Blake depicts Satan as an old man in rural garb, fitting with Milton’s

description of the antagonist as “an aged man in rural weeds,” but which had not been

accurately depicted by other illustrators (“Paradise Regained” I. 314). Blake also

echoes Thurston in showing Satan pointing to the ground and Christ to heaven,

whereas many other designers showed Satan clutching the rock with which he tempts

Christ.

Blake innovates from previous designers (though not from Milton’s text) by

showing Christ pointing to his mouth with his other hand, which visually identifies

Christ himself as the God whose words give life. Christ is a confident figure, in

control of the scene, which is consistent with the tone of the poem, where he always

replies to Satan assuredly and calls Satan’s words lies. By contrast, Satan is

cowering, with a forlorn, doubtful expression, and the hand pointing to his mouth is

uncomfortably twisted, as if an involuntary gesture, making him look quite helpless --

an effective counterpoint to Christ’s poise.

As in the Baptism designs, Blake creates a setting that does not distract from

the central action of the figures, but contains important symbolism. Here, Christ and

Satan stand before a dark wood, below a gloomy sky. The wood recalls that in

Blake’s designs for Milton’s “Comus” (c.1801, Henry E. Huntington Library and

Gallery,; Butlin 527;19 c.1815, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,; Butlin 52820), which, as

Stephen Behrendt shows, are typologically connected with the “Paradise Regained”

series: in contrast to the easily-fooled and (in Blake’s designs) pathetic-looking Lady

who is the protagonist in “Comus,” Christ is in control when he meets Satan

(Behrendt 42-55). Although the scene in The First Temptation is dark, the sky is

11

lightened above Christ, indicating that he transforms darkness through his presence as

Imagination in the world.

The next three designs shift the focus from Christ himself: Andrew and Simon

Peter Searching for Christ, Mary at her Distaff and Satan in Council. Both Jesus’s

friends and his mother are shown distressed at his disappearance and therefore

represent inadequate modes of perception, characterised by doubt. Satan in Council

shows the antagonist also looking doubt-stricken, in spite of his position enthroned,

surrounded by his legions; this pretence at authority, even among his followers, is in

vain.

The series continues with further episodes in which Satan’s attempts to tempt

Christ become increasingly desperate as Christ effortlessly resists them. In Christ

Refusing the Banquet Offered by Satan, Satan is a parody of The Ancient of Days

whom, as seen in The Baptism, Christ supersedes. Here, Christ does display a

moment of apparent doubt, with a troubled expression resembling that of Andrew in

the third design. But in The Second Temptation (or Satan tempts Christ with the

Kingdoms of the Earth, fig. 5), the confident Christ returns. Blake shows Satan

attempting yet another disguise, and hovering vulnerably over the edge of the cliff,

offering an indistinct vision of kingdoms. Milton describes the kingdoms laid out at

the foot of the mountain at length (“Paradise Regained” III. 253-385), reflecting the

iconographic tradition of depicting the biblical temptation in a vast landscape (I have

not encountered such a composition used for the subject for “Paradise Regained” until

John Martin’s Temptation on the Mountain engraving, c.1829). The subject was not

popular among eighteenth-century illustrators of the poem, perhaps owing to concerns

that it might emphasize Milton’s republicanism; such an opinion is expressed of the

passage, though not in connection with illustrations, by commentator Charles Dunster,

12

who argued that when Milton has Christ thinking about the overthrow of kingdoms,

the poet betrays his republican principles (Dunster 27).

Blake shows the vision presented by Satan as a tiered structure of a series of

kingdoms. This is an apparently unprecedented way of representing this temptation,

but the structure could be inspired by visual motifs from elsewhere. J.M.Q. Davies

proposes two possible sources: first, that the shape resembles the Mundane Egg of

plate 32 of Blake’s illuminated book “Milton, A Prophecy” (1804-c.1811),21 which

represents the boundary of the vegetable world, implying that Satan offers merely a

mundane kingship; second, that the tiered structure resembles the papal tiara, which

appears in several Blake images (e.g. The Whore of Babylon, 1809, The British

Museum; see Butlin 523)22 and could represent Christ rejecting institutional religion

(Davies 169-70). Both of Davies’s interpretations are plausible; I propose a third (not

mutually exclusive): that the structure alludes to the Tower of Babel (a motif beloved

by satirical cartoonists in this period), implying that Satan is attempting to offer

something that is beyond his reach. The scenes within the tiered vision are rendered

indistinctly, making this an unattractive offering. Contrasting with Satan’s inadequate

offer, Christ stands strong on the cliff-top, and his figure resembles that in Blake’s

The Creation of Eve for “Paradise Lost” (1807, Henry E. Huntington Library and

Gallery, Butlin 529.8;23 1808, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Butlin 536.8;24 1822,

The National Gallery of Victoria, Butlin 537.225), thus further emphasizing his role as

Creator, and his halo appears to be the moon -- another indication of his cosmic

immanence. Satan’s hazy vision could hardly tempt this powerful Christ.

The next temptation is Christ’s Troubled Dream; here, Christ seems to be

completely unaffected by the nightmare which Satan conjures. Indeed, in the

following image, Morning Chasing Away the Phantoms, he seems surprised at the

13

appearance of the personification of morning, driving away the specters. Here, he

rises from his repose on a grassy bank, and the morning sun becomes his halo, once

again indicating that he is in harmony with the cosmos, for he gives order to it.

In the final temptation, so-called The Third Temptation (this episode is the

third temptation in Luke 4. 9-13) or Christ placed on the pinnacle of the Temple (fig.

6), Satan takes Christ to this elevated place and tells him to throw himself down so

that angels will rescue him. This subject was a popular subject foramong illustrators

of “Paradise Regained,” often as the climactic, final image. While a triumphant

Christ is inherent to the subject, none is as elegantly majestic as Blake’s: he lightly

tiptoes, almost dances on the very pinnacle of the temple in an effortless, gravity-

defying pose. Moreover, Blake’s Satan falls away (recalling his being cast out in The

Baptism) without Christ even gesturing towards him: he does not need to fight Satan;

Satan is defeated by his mere presence.

The expansive, cruciform pose of Blake’s Christ contrasts with the crumpled

ball of Satan’s figure. Christ’s is a gesture of spiritual energy in which Christ appears

in a number of Blake images, most directly The Resurrection (c.1805, The Fogg Art

Museum, Harvard University,; Butlin 502, fig. 7). In The Third Temptation, Christ is

bursting through an opening in the sky, echoing the door to the tomb in The

Resurrection, but this doorway is of the cosmos itself, like Christ’s haloes in The

Second Temptation and Morning Chasing Away the Phantoms. This celestial door

implies a transition between states (like a resurrection) and recalls Blake’s aphorism:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is:

infinite” (Blake, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” 14). While Christ himself does

not undergo a dramatic transformation in the “Paradise Lost” series, the process of his

destroying Satan, which is completed here, represents the individual’s spiritual

14

apocalypse. Thus, the triumphant Christ here is also an avatar for the viewer who

follows the Baptist into the waters of the Jordan in the first design, and rejects the

error represented by Satan, to embody the true state of Imagination; both The

Resurrection and The Third Temptation are moments of Christ manifesting that state

perfectly.

The penultimate “Paradise Regained” design is Angels ministering to Christ

(fig. 8). Milton describes a pastoral scene here, but Blake translates it to a non-

descript setting. Again, the sun is Christ’s halo, which is lightening the sky around

him. His garment has subtle hues of the colors of the sky, indicating his harmonious

place within it. The Eucharistic imagery of bread and wine in this image, unexpected

of the anti-orthodox Blake, can be read symbolically, as representative of a

sacramental sanctification or reordering of the world by the triumph of Christ the

Imagination.

As Werner argues, the configuration of the angels resembles an Alpha (A) and

Omega (Ω), representing Christ as beginning and end. 26 There is a precedent for

Blake making figures form letters in the sketch Study of Hebrew Characters Using the

Human Form (The Whitworth, University of Manchester; Butlin 199 verso),27 and I

observe another instance in Christ Accepting the Office of Redeemer in the “Paradise

Lost” designs in which the figures of Christ and the angels form a lower-case Omega

(ω) (1807, Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, Butlin 529.3;28 1808,

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Butlin 536.3, fig. 9). This parallel strengthens

Werner’s reading of the “Paradise Regained” design, creating an iconographic link

between Christ’s offer of and achievement of redemption in Milton’s pair of poems,

and reinforces the symbolism of the Christ of the “Paradise Regained” series as the

source and immanent sanctifier -- the beginning and end -- of all things.

15

Conclusion

In the final design, Christ Returns to His Mother (fig. 10) the scene returns to the

domestic setting of Mary’s hut, seen in Mary at her Distaff. Christ returns home and

his mother rises to greet him; Andrew and Simon Peter are also present, although they

are not mentioned in this passage in Milton’s text. Thus, Blake creates bookend

appearances of these supporting characters, which invite reflection on their unseen

narratives. This design can be read as the beginning of their Christ-like, Imaginative

perception, and recognition of the “World of Imagination and Vision.” In the two

early designs, these figures are despairing at Christ’s disappearance. Christ’s return

demonstrates that these supporting characters (and Blake’s viewer) can overcome

their own temptations and inadequacies.

This design confirms my revisionist reading of the series as depicting Christ as

a cosmic figure who engenders “Imagination and Vision” in the world. Here, a new

sun is rising, filling the whole sky, like the firmament in The Baptism; its light

penetrates Mary’s hut, its lower edge delineated in an arc of light above the shadows,

and the palms are now bearing fruit and appear to be in motion, as if dancing,

recalling Psalms in which the whole earth resounds praise for the Lord (e.g. Pss. 96-

98). The Christ of Blake’s “Paradise Regained” is Creator and immanent Imagination

in a world which does not need Paradise to be regained, but re-viewed, re-seen, re-

cognised. The designs also invite us, as viewers, to renew our own perception -- to

see Paradise in Blake’s work, and in the world around us.

16

WORKS CITED

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Milton. Lincoln NE and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.

Billingsley, Naomi. The Visual Christology of William Blake. Ph.D. Dissertation.

The University of Manchester. 2016.

Bindman, David. Catalogue of the Blake Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum,

Cambridge. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1970.

Bindman, David. Blake as an Artist. Oxford: Phaidon, 1977.

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V.

Erdman. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake. New Haven CT:

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Eaves. Hanover NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2013.

Davies, J.M.Q. Blake's Milton Designs: the dynamics of meaning. West Cornwall

CT: Locust Hill Press, 1993.

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Oxford University Press, 1980.

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new edition, with notes of various authors. London: Cadell & Davies, 1795.

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Archive. 1996-2017, blakearchive.org.

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Erdman, David V. The Illuminated Blake. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1974.

Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton NJ:

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poems and other writings. London: Macmillan and Co., 1863.

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biographical and critical. Volume XIII. London: Printed for J. Heath and G.

Kearley, 1805.

Milton, John. Paradise Regained. London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1817.

Milton, John. The Poems of John Milton. Ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler.

London and New York: Longman, 1980.

Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Tradition. 2 Vols. London: Routledge, 1969.

Rossetti, William Michael. Letters of William Michael Rossetti Concerning Whitman,

Blake, and Shelley, to Anne Gilchrist and Her Son Herbert Gilchrist. Ed.

Clarence Gohdes and Paull Franklin Baum. Durham NC: Duke University

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Spector, Sheila. “Blake’s Graphic Use of Hebrew.” Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly

37. 2 (2003): 63-79.

Werner, Bette Charlene. Blake’s Vision of the Poetry of Milton: Illustrations to six

poems. London: Associated Universities Press, 1986.

Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. “William Blake: Illustrator-Interpreter of Paradise

Regained.” Calm of Mind: Tercententary Essays on Paradise Regained and

Samson Agonistes in Honor of John S. Diekhoff. Ed. Joseph Anthony

18

Wittreich. Cleveland OH: The Press of Case Western Reserve University,

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University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.

19

20

1NOTES

* This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of

Manchester. I am grateful to James Romaine and Rachel Hostetter Smith for their guidance in

preparing this article.

Blake, “Annotations to Wordsworth’s Poems” 665. All references to Blake’s writings are from

David Erdman’s The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake; numbers indicate pagination.

2 For a summary of scholarly debates about Blake’s view of nature, see Hutchings 37-44.

3 These arguments are made at greater length, and in relation to further images by Blake, in my

doctoral dissertation, The Visual Christology of William Blake.

4 Given limits of space, only the designs most key to my argument are illustrated in this article; the

full series is illustrated in Butlin’s catalogue raisonné (plates 684-95), and can be viewed via the

Blake Archive: http://blakearchive.org/copy/but544.1?descId=but544.1.wc.01 Accessed

03/23/2017.

5 Butlin 544. Numbers in references to Butlin’s catalogue raisonné of Blake’s paintings and

drawings are catalogue numbers.

6 Butlin’s catalogue raisonné and the Blake Archive both give c.1816-20 as the date range; the

Fitzwilliam Museum, which owns the designs, gives c.1816-18 -- hence the different date ranges in

my essay text and captions.

7 The patrons were Revd. Joseph Thomas and Thomas Butts; the other Milton poems were “On the

Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” “Paradise Lost,” “L’Allegro” and “il Penseroso,” and “Comus.”

8 Artist 196. Bindman’s comment is particularly surprising given that he had catalogued the designs

for the Fitzwilliam before Blake as an Artist appeared; the catalogue entries for the designs are brief

(Bindman, Fitzwilliam 34).

9 Accounts of individual spiritual development are central to a number of Blake’s key works from

this period, including “The Four Zoas” (c.1796-1807), “Milton, A Prophecy” (c.1804-11),

“Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion” (c.1804-20), and his Illustrations to the Book of

Job (c.1805-06, 1825) -- all of which are informed by Milton’s poem.

10 Viewable, respectively, via the Blake Archive:

http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/biblicaltemperas?descId=but415.1.pt.01 Accessed 03/23/2017.

11 An example of this type, contemporaneous to Blake’s designs, is James Fittler’s engraving after

E.F. Burney’s Baptism of Christ, the frontispiece to Rivington’s 1817 edition of the poem.

12 This apparent attention to geometry may recall for the modern viewer Piero della Francesca’s

painting of the same subject, now in London’s National Gallery (1450s). Blake could not have

known the image, which only arrived in London in 1861, but it is now perhaps the most famous

representation of the subject, not least for the analyses that have been made of its geometrical

forms.

13 Biblical quotations are taken from the King James Version, the translation Blake himself used.

14 Even if this second line is dismissed as another line of the landscape, or even an under-drawing

(though the distinct coloring in the whitish space suggests otherwise), the circularity of the

composition is still so marked that the firmament hypothesis can stand.

15 The biblical Ancient of Days can be interpreted as the Father or the Son, but Blake’s figure is

clearly based on pictorial traditions of representing the Father as an aged, bearded figure.

16 On the figure of Urizen, and his name, see Damon 419-26.

17 John 1. 23, cf. Isaiah 40. 3. The frontispiece is viewable via the Blake Archive:

http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/aro.a?descId=aro.a.illbk.01 Accessed 03/23/2017.

18 Milton, “Paradise Regained” I. 349-50. Quotations from Milton’s poems are from John Carey

and Alastair Fowler’s The Poems of John Milton; Roman numerals indicate book numbers of a

poem; Arabic numerals indicate line numbers.

19 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/work/but527 Accessed

03/23/2017.

20 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/work/but528 Accessed

03/23/2017.

21 Viewable via the Blake Archive (‘Copy C’): http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/milton.c?

descId=milton.c.illbk.34 Accessed 03/23/2017.

22 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/biblicalwc?

descId=but523.wc.01 Accessed 03/23/2017.

23 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/but529.1?

descId=but529.1.wc.08 Accessed 03/23/2017.

24 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/but536.1?

descId=but536.1.wc.08 Accessed 03/23/2017.

25 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/but537.1?

descId=but537.1.wc.02 Accessed 03/23/2017.

26 Werner 206. J.M.Q. Davies rejects Werner’s suggestion because he thinks Blake could not

reconcile this orthodox teleology with his idea of Christ as a brother and friend (J.M.Q. Davies 176;

cf. Blake, “Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion” 146). Blake’s Christ is not such a one-

dimensional figure, and, as seen in The Baptism of Christ, it is precisely through his being a cosmic

figure, immanent in everything, that Christ engenders brotherhood.

27 This drawing is illustrated in Spector, fig. 2; the article is available via Blake/An Illustrated

Quarterly’s online issue archive: http://bq.blakearchive.org/37.2.spector Accessed 03/23/2017.

28 Viewable via the Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/but529.1?

descId=but529.1.wc.03 Accessed 03/23/2017.

CAPTIONS

Figure 1. William Blake, The Baptism of Christ (Paradise Regained). c.1816-18. Pen, Indian ink,

grey wash and watercolour on paper. 174 x 136 mm. The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of

Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The Fitzwilliam Museum,

Cambridge. IN COLOUR PLEASE.

Figure 2. William Blake, The Baptism of Christ (Paradise Regained), detail. c.1816-18. Pen, Indian

ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Figure 3. William Blake, ‘Europe’ Plate i: Frontispiece, ‘The Ancient of Days’. 1827(?). Etching

and bodycolour (gold) on paper. 232 x 170 mm. The Whitworth, The University of Manchester.

Gift of John Edward Taylor, 1892. Photograph © The Whitworth, University of Manchester. [THE

WHITWORTH HAVE REQUESTED THAT A LOW-RES VERSION IS USED FOR THE

ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE ARTICLE] IN COLOUR PLEASE.

Figure 4. William Blake, Christ tempted by Satan to turn the stones into bread (Paradise

Regained). c.1816-18. Pen, Indian ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. 168 x 133 mm. The

Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935.

Photograph © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Figure 5. William Blake, Satan tempts Christ with the Kingdoms of the Earth (Paradise Regained).

c.1816-18. Pen, Indian ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. 168 x 131 mm. The Fitzwilliam

Museum, University of Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Figure 6. William Blake, Christ placed on the pinnacle of the Temple (Paradise Regained). c.1816-

18. Pen, Indian ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. 166 x 133 mm. The Fitzwilliam Museum,

University of Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. IN COLOUR PLEASE

Figure 7. William Blake, The Resurrection. c.1805. Watercolour, black-gray ink and graphite on

off-white wove paper. 414 x 302 mm. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville

L. Winthrop, 1943.405. Photograph: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard

College.

Figure 8. William Blake, Angels ministering to Christ (Paradise Regained). c.1816-18. Pen, Indian

ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. 165 x 136 mm. The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of

Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The Fitzwilliam Museum,

Cambridge. IN COLOUR IF FOUR COLOUR PLATES ARE POSSIBLE.

Figure 9. William Blake, Christ Accepting the Office of Redeemer (Illustration to Milton’s

“Paradise Lost”). 1808. Pen and watercolour on paper. 496 x 393 mm. Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston. Museum purchase with fund donated by contribution 90.94. Photograph © [THE MFA

REQUESTS THAT THE DATE OF PUBLICATION MUST BE INCLUDED HERE] Museum of

Fine Arts, Boston.

Figure 10. William Blake, Christ returns to His mother (Paradise Regained). c.1816-18. Pen,

Indian ink, grey wash and watercolour on paper. 168 x 133 mm. The Fitzwilliam Museum,

University of Cambridge. Bequeathed by Thomas Henry Riches 1935. Photograph © The

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.