William Blake: Naked Spirituality

In his seminal biography of William Blake, published in 1863, Alexander Gilchrist relates that one day a visitor to Blake's house arrived to find William and his wife Catherine sitting in their garden summer house, stark naked. "Come on in," Blake famously called out to his friend, the aptly named Mr. Butts. "Its only Adam and Eve, you know!"

The artist and poet William Blake (1757-1827) was both brilliant and eccentric. Some of his contemporaries considered him mad, but that seems a step too far. Blake's artistic brilliance has recently been on display in a magnificent, comprehensive exhibition at the Tate Britain (ended Feb. 2, 2020). His eccentricity appears as well, in his style, subject matter, and comments by contemporaries. Gilchrist, who rescued Blake from obscurity, called him "a new kind of man, wholly original." It's hard to disagree with that.

Blake was unconventional in his life as in his work. His work, including paintings, engravings, etchings, and drawings, is chock full of spirits, angels, demons, humans experiencing pleasure and pain. Some of Blake's images were inspired by his reading and cultural milieu. Others sprang from his fertile imagination. Blake claimed to have seen supernatural beings, even conversed with angels in a tree. (Below: "The Good and Evil Angels")

Many of Blake's characters have one thing in common: a lack of clothing. Blake obviously delighted in the human form, whether in physical or spiritual versions. In Blake's vision, mystical religion cavorts with eroticism. He portrays Adam and Eve in the buff, of course, but in a wholly sensual pose. Satan, angels, and God keep an eye on them. Only God is decently attired. 

Lots of other nudes, some in erotic positions, are juxtaposed with religious imagery and symbolism. (Below: "Satan before the Throne of God")

"Lot and His Daughters" shows the scantily clad daughters checking out their drunken Dad's equipment before, well, you know.

What we can see today was probably the tip of the iceberg. His executor, appointed by Catherine Blake, burned many volumes of  her husband's drawings and manuscripts. 

William Blake certainly had highly unusual ideas for his time regarding sex, ideas influenced by religious mystics such as the Moravians, and the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. At times, he endorsed a version of free love and condemned marriage as a legal prison. But his ideas were complex and changed over time, becoming more conservative as he grew older.

He once told a barrister friend that it was part of God's plan that he should have access to a "community of women." He cited the Bible: Did not God's Chosen, the Patriarch Abraham, have concubines? Blake's friend was taken aback: "Shall I call him Artist or Genius--or Mystic--or Madman? Probably all." 

When Blake told his wife Catherine of his Abrahamic vision, she cried, and he abandoned his quest for concubines. It seems he was motivated towards the Abrahamic idea in part by Catherine's apparent inability to bear children.  

William and Catherine Blake are buried in Bunhill Fields Cemetery, Finsbury, London.