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Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
"And this the form of mighty Hand..." (Plate 70)
Part Of:

Collective Title: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, Copy E

Date:
1804 to 1820
Materials & Techniques:
Relief etching printed in orange ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, smooth, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches (34.3 x 26.4 cm), Plate: 8 3/4 x 6 3/8 inches (22.2 x 16.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "70"

Lettered inside image: "And this the form of mighty Hand sitting on Albion's cliffs | Before the face of Albion, a mighty threat'ning Form. | His bosom wide & shoulders huge, overspreading wondrous, | Bear Three strong sinewy Necks & Three awful & terrible Heads, | Three Brains in contradictory council brooding incessantly, | Neither daring to put in act its councils, fearing each other, | Therefore rejecting Ideas as nothing & holding all Wisdom | To consist in the agreements & disagree[me]nts of Ideas, | Plotting to devour Albion's Body of Humanity & Love. | Such Form the aggregate of the Twelve Sons of Albion took: & such | Their appearance when combin'd: but often by birth -pangs & loud groans | They divide to Twelve: the key-bones & the chest dividing in pain | Disclose a hideous orifice; thence issuing the Giant-brood | Arise as the smoke of the furnace, shaking the rocks from sea to sea, | And there they combine into Three Forms, named Bacon & Newton & Locke, | In the Oak Groves of Albion which overspread all the Earth. | Imputing Sin & Righteousness to Individuals, Rahab | Sat deep within him hid: his Feminine Power unreveal'd | Brooding Abstract Philosophy, to destroy Imagination, the Divine- | Humanity: A Three-fold Wonder, feminine, most beautiful, Three-fold | Each within other. On her white marble & even Neck, her Heart | Inorb'd and bonified: with locks of shadowing modesty, shining | Over her beautiful Female features, soft flourishing in beauty, | Beams mild, all love and all perfection, that when the lips | Recieve a kiss from Gods or Men, a threefold kiss returns | From the press'd loveliness; so her whole immortal form, three-fold, | Three-fold embrace returns: consuming lives of Gods & Men, | In fires of beauty melting them as gold & silver in the furnace. | Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom & loins | To put in act what her Heart wills; O who can withstand her power? | Her name is Vala in Eternity : in Time her name is Rahab. | The Starry Heavens all were fled from the mighty limbs of Albion | His"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(70)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
arch | clouds | hills | literary theme | monument | religious and mythological subject | sky | standing | sun | text | women
Access:
Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3504
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The Romantic Print in the Age of Revolutions: Hero, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-01-23 - 2003-06-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

William Blake - His Art & Times (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982-12-03 - 1983-02-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Blake - His Art & Times (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-09-15 - 1982-11-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

David Bindman, The History of British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, pp. 27, 29 (vol. 2), pl. 5, N6761 +H57 2008 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

He´le`ne Pharabod-Ibata, The Challenge of the Sublime, from Burke's Philosophical Enquiry to British Romantic Art, Manchester University Press, Manchester, p. 242, fig. 26, NX650.S92 P43 2018 (LC) (YCBA) [YCBA]


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