Volume 48, Number 8 · May 17, 2001
'Therefore I Print'
By John Updike
William Blake
an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 29–June 24, 2001
William Blake
Catalog of the exhibition by Robin Hamlyn and Michael Phillips, with introductory essays by Peter Ackroyd and Marilyn Butler
Abrams/Metropolitan Museum of Art, 304 pp., $75.00
The Metropolitan's Blake exhibition originated at the greatly enlarged Tate Gallery in London, and included over twice as many items as its American version; such a vast sampling, served up scarcely more than two decades after another comprehensive show at the Tate in 1978, reveals an inordinate British affection for Blake. He represents, if we may presume to extrapolate an English view, an innocent religiosity, both ardent and nonsensical; a triumph of eccentricity, the Englishman's cherished privilege and informal purchase on freedom; a plea and protest on behalf of the bejeweled old England buried beneath the grime of industrialism, 'the dark Satanic mills' erected on the rational, mechanical, heartless premises symbolized by Newton and Voltaire; and a thrilling voice, like that of his contemporary Robert Burns, from the lower classes, lending proof of the progressive righteousness of Britain's curious democracy.
Review, 2740 words
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