The past decade has seen a flourishing in studies of William Blake's Christianity from a number of different angles, including the discovery by Marsha Keith Schuchard and Keri Davies that Blake's mother had been a member of the Moravian community in London, and Christopher Rowland's analysis of Blake's biblical exegesis.
'William Blake: Apprentice and Master', curated by Michael Phillips for the Ashmolean Museum, offers another perspective on the artist and poet. Having explored Blake's visionary ideas in his exhibition for the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum in 20002001, here Phillips instead draws upon his expertise in Blake's practice as a printmaker; Phillips has himself developed a means of replicating Blake's graphic techniques. The exhibition examines three periods in Blake's career: his early training as a commercial engraver, his innovative printing techniques of the 1790s, and his final years--including his own late works, alongside works by the Ancients, a group of younger artists who were inspired by Blake: Samuel Palmer, George Richmond and Edward Calvert. Thus, it is the evolution of Blake's techniques, rather than the development of his beliefs that takes centre-stage.
There is, nevertheless, plenty to interest readers of Art and Christianity within the exhibition. Indeed, as is noted in a caption in the central gallery of the exhibition, for Blake, his technique reflected his message. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793--two fine copies of which are shown in the exhibition--Blake stated that by printing in the innovative 'infernal method' of relief etching, he was 'melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.' This method is a metaphor for Blake's philosophical (or theological) mission to expunge error and reveal truth. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell itself, this endeavour takes the form of a critique of the theology of Emmanuel Swedenborg. The strength of Blake's objections to this is also expressed in his annotated copy of the Swedish mystic's The Wisdom of Angels Concerning the Divine Providence in which, in the opening page displayed, Blake has written 'Lies & Priestcraft.'
