I realize I've let this little project lapse in a big way. The original idea was to take a page from William Blake's For the Sexes: the Gates of Paradise, save it as a digital wallpaper on my computer, and then just have it there for a week, and after that week offer a blog reflection on using computer wallpaper technology to mediate spiritual experience. I also wanted to think about it as a subtle, and spiritual, game.
This one has been a wallpaper image (amongst others, I must admit) for a couple months now. I thought the previous plate, plate 14, was one of the finest images in the book. This plate I think is one of the worst. I find it very poorly executed and confusing. What does the shining, floating, Urizen-esque figure represent? A visiting angel, or a departing soul? This too-material representation of souls got Blake into trouble (worse reviews than usual) later in his career when he did engravings for Blair's The Grave.
And what about the figure at the bottom left? This one could represent the soul as well (his head seems placed in a way as to make the viewer think it belongs with the shrouded trunk). How else to explain the contorted figure, bent in ways that humans are typically not capable of achieving?
I think the composition is a disaster. As an emblem it might work if the Urizen-figure was isolated from all the rest (and the rest blotted out), though of course that would change the meaning of the image.
The caption is interesting, I'll grant that, though almost a cliche for Blake: "Fear and hope...are Vision." That is, our world is the one we SEE: if we are fearful, we see only our fear, but if we are hopeful, we see reason for hope. Either way, it could be argued (especially by skeptical atheists like Blake's contemporary and acquaintance William Godwin), it is a form of blindness, and, besides, Blake says it more profoundly elsewhere in his corpus.
Maybe I would be more receptive to the spiritual message if the image were composed and executed better. I'm hoping the next image in the series is done better and I will have something more intelligent to say next time (forgive me, Blake!).
Posted by jeb at July 11, 2005 8:53 PM | TrackBack