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Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Text by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
Chapter I, "Lo, a shadow of horror is risen..." (Plate 5)
Part Of:

Collective Title: The First Book of Urizen, Copy A

Date:
1794
Materials & Techniques:
Color-printed relief etching in orange-brown ink, with watercolor on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 10 x 7 1/8 inches (25.4 x 18.1 cm), Plate: 5 7/8 x 4 inches (14.9 x 10.2 cm), Spine: 10 1/4 inches (26 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in graphite upper right: "5"; in red ink upper right: "3"

Lettered inside image, left: "Chap: I | 1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen | In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific? | Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what Demon | Hath form'd this abominable void | This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some | said | 'It is Urizen.' But unknown, abstracted | Brooding secret, the dark power hid. 2. Times on times he divided, & measur'd | Space by space in his ninefold darkness | Unseen, unknown: changes appeard | Like desolate mountains rifted furious | By the black winds of perturbation | 3. For he strove in battles dire | In unseen conflictions with shapes | Bred from his forsaken wilderness. | Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element | Combustion. blast, vapour and cloud. | 4. Dark revolving in silent activity: | Unseen in tormenting passions; | An activity unknown and horrible; | A self-contemplating shadow, | In enormous labours occupied"; right: "5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests | Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown. | Brooding shut in the deep, all avoid | The petrific abominable chaos | 6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen | Prepar'd; his ten thousands of thunders | Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across | The dread world. & the rolling of wheels | As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds | In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains | Of hail & ice; voices of terror, | Are heard, like thunders of autumn, | When the cloud blases over the harvests | Chap:II. | -tion | 1. Earth was not: nor globes of attrac- | The will of the Immortal expanded | Or contracted his all flexible senses. | Death was not, but eternal life sprung | 2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens | Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd | Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd | That solitary one in Immensity | 3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eter- | -nity

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.5(5)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
fire | flames | leaf | literary theme | men | nudes | religious and mythological subject | text | vines
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3920
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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]

William Blake, Libros profe´ticos, vol. 1, Atalanta, Vilau¨r, Spain, 2013, p. 285, PR4142 .S35 2013 [ORBIS]


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