All Things William Blake

Colour print finished in ink and watercolor.

Watercolour and graphite on paper

Ink and watercolour on paper

Pen and watercolor on paper

Colour print, ink, tempera and watercolour on paper

William Blake

Pen, graphite, watercolor, ink

Etching, watercolor, ink

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With Sun

William Blake's life mask

Before photography, masks from moulds of living and recently dead faces were the most accurate way of preserving someone's appearance. Deville probably learned the technique from his master, the sculptor Joseph Nollekens. Deville practised phrenology - reading character from the size and shape of the skull, as devised by J Spurzheim. Blake seems to have read Spurzheim, too. His drawing of the man who taught him painting in his dreams (c. 1819-20) resembles a phrenology diagram. Deville built up a collection of casts and wished to include Blake's "as representative of the imaginative faculty". Because of phrenology, we have a quasi-photographic image of an artist who has become infinitely more famous since his death."

TO WINTER. O WINTER ! bar thine adamantine doors : The North is thine ; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep Rides heavy; his storms are unchained, sheathed In ribbed steel ; I dare not lift mine eyes ; For he hath reared his sceptre o'er the world. Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks: He withers all in silence, and in his hand Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life. He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st With storms ! till heaven smiles, and the monster Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.