ART REVIEW : The William Blake Who Knew Exactly Where to Draw the Line

English artist, philosopher and poet William Blake (1757-1827) never allowed physical appearances to get in his way. Possessed of a visionary imagination, he portrayed a spiritual reality concealed by the visible world. But unlike romanticists who deal with muzzy ideas by smudging edges or veiling their imagery, Blake delineated his visions precisely.

As we see in “William Blake and His Contemporaries and Followers: Selected Works From the Collection of Robert N. Essick,” an exhibition at the Huntington Art Gallery (to Feb. 28), Blake didn’t shroud death in a dark cloak; he knew the grim reaper was a muscular, bearded demon with spiky wings who relentlessly pursues the human soul. In celebrated illustrations for Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Blake set forth such horrific pictures as a thief who turns into a six-footed serpent and bites off the head of his partner in crime.

How did Blake divine these personages, as well as far less threatening ones? Well, sometimes he borrowed from other artists. (“Joseph of Arimathea,” for example, comes from Michelangelo.) But other images appeared to him in visions during seance-like sessions, or so we’re told.

Whatever his source of inspiration--and despite his severe limitations as an artist--there’s no question that Blake developed a personal symbolism and created powerful depictions of huddled figures and swirling, superhuman forms. Regarded as a forerunner to English Art Nouveau, he developed a mannered linear style, adding color for emotional effect. But his idiosyncratic art is so entwined with his mystical poetry and philosophy that it is perpetually clouded by conjecture.

That doesn’t bother Essick, a professor of English at UC Riverside, who began acquiring works by Blake about 20 years ago, became a Blake scholar, authored several books on him and now owns the finest Blake collection in private hands. In fact Essick considers the mysterious aspects of Blake’s work a bonus. “It’s a rich source of scholarly entertainment,” he said during an interview at the Huntington where 64 works from his collection are on view.

Attracted to Blake’s poetry while in graduate school at UC San Diego, Essick became intrigued by the relationship between Blake’s writings and drawings in his illuminated books. Though some dealers warned, “You can’t collect Blake; his work is all gone,” Essick plunged into the field, often finding material on the shelves of vendors who insisted they had none.

“Blake’s public fame is much greater than his reputation among collectors,” Essick explained.

He originally set “the modest goal of acquiring the standard texts and works of criticism on William Blake’s poetry and art as a reference library,” Essick wrote in the catalogue introduction to the exhibition. But “bitten by the bibliomania bug,” he expanded his range to “all printed references to Blake--no matter how brief or trivial--published before 1863 (when Alexander Gilchrist published his landmark biography of Blake), all books with at least a chapter devoted to Blake and all exhibition and sale catalogues listing an original Blake drawing, painting or important print.”

Restricted by his modest income, these days Essick is frustrated by escalating auction prices. But because his is a “scholar’s collection” more concerned with evidence contributing to a complete picture of the artist than with the aesthetic perfection of any one piece, he is not out of the market. He delights in works that other collectors might reject and cheerfully points out their flaws.

“A friend of mine calls this the world’s largest Blake doodle,” Essick said of a pencil drawing of “The Death of Hector.” Though notably indecisive, the sheet is a preliminary drawing for a larger project that illustrates the artist’s trial-and-error method.

Essick called a tempera-on-copper painting of “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” a “noble ruin” because the paint has darkened and flaked and faces of three Apostles have been over-painted during restorations.

Pointing out a sketch of a man’s legs in the upper corner of Henry Fuseli’s ink drawing of Michelangelo that ends at the knees, Essick said, “The legs were drawn by Blake; they aren’t good enough to be Fuseli’s.” But shown with Blake’s etching/engraving of the same subject, the drawing illuminates an unusual partnership between the two artists. Instead of handing Blake a detailed drawing to be reproduced as a print, Fuseli gave him a sketch and let his colleague finish it.

The collector has bought a page left out of Blake’s “Book of Urizen” because it was printed crooked and a rather hokey engraving of “Blake’s Work-Room and Death-Room” by Frederic Shields that Essick calls “Victorian kitsch,” but the exhibition offers more than curiosities and interesting imperfections. Essick also owns many works that are the envy of more aesthetically oriented acquisitors.

Illustrations commissioned for a textbook of “The Pastorals of Virgil,” for example, are not only Blake’s only engravings in wood but masterful expressions of a troubled paradise.

A color-printed drawing of “Lamech and His Two Wives,” depicting the distraught killer of a young man, represents Blake at the peak of his pictorial talent. The draped, biblical characters are rather like neo-classical columns, bent by a wave of emotion. Textured with rich color that has been printed on paper and finished with pen and watercolor, the drawing is skillfully organized to focus attention on the theme of self-defeating vengeance.

“The Blind Tiriel Departing From Har and Heva,” a gentle depiction of a sightless man leaving the safety of home, is from the only known series of finished drawings that illustrate one of Blake’s own poems.

About two-thirds of the works exhibited are by Blake, the remaining third by a dozen artists associated with or influenced by him.

A symposium on “Blake and His Circle” will be held at the Huntington on Jan. 29 and 30. Sponsored by UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, Caltech and the Huntington, the program includes presentations by Blake scholars Martin Butlin, Aileen Ward, D. W. Doerrbecker, Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley. Information and reservations: (818) 405-2225.