The Visionary Heads is a series of black chalk and pencil drawings produced by William Blake after 1818 by request of John Varley, the watercolour artist and astrologer. The subjects of the sketches, many of whom are famous historical and mythical characters, appeared to Blake in visions during late night meetings with Varley, as if sitting for portraits. The drawings are contained in three sketchbooks and there are a number of loose leaves indicating the existence of a fourth sketchbook. Like most of Blake's other works, they have been subject to academic scrutiny and study.
Among the Visionary Heads drawn by Blake are David, Solomon, Uriah and Bathsheba, Nebuchadnezzar, Saul, Lot, Job, Socrates, his wife Xantippe, Julius Caesar, Christ, Muhammad, Merlin, Boadicea, Charlemagne, Ossian, Robin Hood, Caractacus, King Edward I, his Queen Eleanor, Edward the Black Prince, King Edward III, William Wallace, Wat Tyler, Roger Bacon, John Milton, Voltaire, as well as Devil, Satan, "Cancer", The Man Who Built the Pyramids, The Portrait of a Man who instructed Mr Blake in Painting &c in his Dreams, etc. The most famous of that series is Blake's painting of The Ghost of a Flea, made after the Visionary Head of The Ghost of a Flea.
Background and context
William Blake said he had seen visions from his young age throughout his life, and in these visions he was visited by many spirits of people from the remote past as well as by his deceased friends from whom he received his inspiration for his poetry and painting. He also believed he was personally instructed and encouraged by archangels to create his artistic works, which he said were actively read and enjoyed by the same archangels. In 1800 he wrote: “I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate.”
In September 1818 the successful young painter John Linnell, one of the best friends and kindest patrons of Blake, introduced to Blake his former teacher John Varley. Varley was fascinated by Blake's accounts of his visions, thinking that they came from the spirit world of astrology. He persuaded Blake to draw the images of these visions in his presence to illustrate his Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy, published in 1828, after the death of Blake.
In 1819–20, Blake and Varley would often meet at Varley's house, and from about 9.00 pm until 5.00 am, play a game in which Varley would suggest Blake attempt to summon the spirit of some historical or mythological person. On the appearance of the spirit, Blake would then attempt to sketch its likeness.The Head of the Ghost of a Flea. Tate. Retrieved on August 9, 2009 These drawings of which many remain, are the "spiritual images" of many very well known people of the past, whom Blake said he saw in visions that he experienced during these sessions.
Blake's biographer Alexander Gilchrist describes the meetings in the following manner:
Sometimes these sessions were in the nature of public events, as Bentley noted: "These midnight seances attracted the attention of many who otherwise would have ignored Blake, and a surprising number of lurid accounts were published about them – accounts which may, however, be substantially true. At least they are fairly consistent both with each other and with the inscriptions on the Visionary Heads themselves."G. E. Bentley Jr., The Stranger from Paradise, p. 372.
John Varley left his account of these sessions that took place almost nightly, recording some dates and circumstances of the evenings. He made a lot of detailed inscriptions below or on the back of Blake's drawings that help to classify them. He also created two lists known as “Varley's lists of Visionary Heads” (A & B) where he specified about 90 titles (some of them repeated) of “Portraits Drawn by W. Blake from Visions which appeared to him & Remained while he completed them…”BR 2, p. 350. John Linnell, who also was involved in these events and copied many of Blake's Visionary Heads to engrave them later for Varley's Treatise, wrote his own account and views on this subject in his “Journal” and “Autobiography” (fully cited by Gerald Eades Bentley Jr. in his Blake Records, see in the Bibliography below). In the opinion of the Blake scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes:
Another Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine, expressed her opinion thus:
Description
Varley provided Blake with a number of sketchbooks of different sizes for the purpose of making the drawings, the so-called "Blake–Varley Sketchbooks" (BVS). Collectively, scholars have identified three sketchbooks in which the drawings were contained. Two have been recovered by collectors, and the third has yet to be discovered, though clear records from the period and individual pages attest to the sketchbook. Other unbound sketches have been identified as well, some of them removed from one of the sketchbooks, while others may have been loose since Blake's production of them.
In addition, there are many Loose Visionary Heads made of separate sheets of paper. Some of them survived only in copies made by John Linnell. Though many other pictures were documented by Varley and Linnell, they have not been discovered and possibly are lost forever. Among these lost are the visionary heads of Alfred the Great, Cleopatra, St. Dunstan, Edward IV; Eleanor (Queen of Edward I), Guy Fawkes, Henry I of England, Henry II of England, Hezekiah, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Founder of the Pyramids, Richard III, David Rizzio, Richard Duke of Normandy, Robert, Duke of Normandy, King Rufus, Semiramis, William Shakespeare and Wild Thyme.
The "Blake–Varley Sketchbooks":
The Small Blake–Varley Sketchbook (discovered in 1967) The Large Blake–Varley Sketchbook (discovered in 1989) The Folio Blake–Varley Sketchbook (not yet discovered)
The Small Blake–Varley Sketchbook
The sketchbook (c. 1819, Butlin #692, now broken up) that was lost to sight for almost a century was acquired in 1967 by Mr D. E. Clayton-Smith and then described and reproduced in 1969 by Martin Butlin (see Bibliography). This is an album 155 × 105 mm with the watermark 1806 that contains at least 36 pictures attributed to Blake, including:
Empress Maud Caractacus (Butlin #719) Falconberg Prince Arthur Harold II killed at the Battle of Hastings Herod Corinna? (in profile) Antinous? John, King of England Merlin Milton's first wife The Devil and a man in armour Ghost of a Flea The Man Who Built Pyramids (#752) Voltaire in profile Edward VI? with a spiky collar Lais of Corinth the Courtesian Richard Coeur de Lion Cancer (#751)
plus a few unidentified figures.
Image Title Info DescriptionVisionary Head of Caractacusc. 1819; 195 × 150 mm (Sir Geoffrey Keynes Collection). [Small BVS, p. 36; Butlin #719, Varley (lists) A1, B20]An impressive drawing of the heroic leader and King of the Britons (of the Catuvellauni tribe, born c. 10 AD, died after c. 50 AD) against of the Roman Emperor Claudius. There is a rough landscape drawing by Varley on the other side of the sheet.Visionary Head of Harold killed at the Battle of Hastingsc. 1819; 155 × 205 mm (Collection of Robert N. Essick.) [Small BVS, p. 76; Varley A15]Harold Godwinson, or Harold II of England (c. 1022—14 October 1066), the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, was killed at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. In History of the Normans by Amatus of Montecassino written thirty years after the Battle of Hastings, is given the first report of Harold being shot in the eye with an arrow, as it is clearly depicted by Blake in his drawing. It was mentioned in "Urania" (1825, p. 407): “Mr. Blake's pictures of the last judgment, his profiles of Wallace, Edward the Sixth, Harold, Cleopatra, and numerous others which we have seen, are really wonderful for the spirit in which they are delineated."Ghost of a flea, head in profile c. 1819; Pencil on paper, 189 × 153 mm (Tate Britain, London) [Small BVS, p. 98 (in profile); Butlin #692 98]Blake's The Ghost of a Flea is depicted twice in the book: in a whole length, p. 94; and his head in profile, p. 98. Here see the Ghost of a Flea and two other heads engraved in Varley's Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy.The Man who Built the Pyramids18 October 1819; 300 × 215 mm (Tate Britain, London) [Small BVS, p. 102; Butlin #752]As G. Keynes noted "Blake has projected into this visionary head of the builder his hatred of the mathematical materialism of the Egyptians and their architecture. A small drawing alongside shows his thick lips parted; the drawing in the centre is presumably the mason's workshop. At the bottom is a book with hieroglyphs on the cover. It is inscribed by Varley with the title below and is dated Oct. 18, 1819"G. Keynes, Drawings of William Blake: 92 Pencil Studies, plate 62. The replica attributed to John Linnell (1825). Edward VI? with a spiky collarc. 1819; 205 × 157 (M. D. E. Clayton-Stamm Collection, England) [Small BVS, p. 108]G. Keynes inscribed this as an unidentified Visionary Head, "but it may well be a vision of a prince of the royal household. The coat of arms on his shoulder bears three lions of England."G. Keynes, Drawings of William Blake: 92 Pencil Studies, plate 61. Bentley suggests that this is Edward VI.Cancerc. 1820; 165 × 114 mm. (Mr Leonard Baskin, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.) [Small BVS, page c; Butlin #751]The drawing is inscribed by John Varley as Cancer, the astrological sign, which is associated with the constellation Cancer. However Blake may have intended it as a self-caricature. Jacob Bronowski in his book A Man Without a Mask (1943) named this Prophetic Head of William Blake. Varley included quite a different engraved version of the picture into his Zodiacal Physiognomy (see Bibliography). Here see the engraving of Nebuchadnezzar Coin as Seen in a Vision by Mr. Blake (#709) and Head of Cancer (#751)
The Large Blake–Varley Sketchbook
The Sketchbook was sold by Christie's (London) to Mr. Allan Parker. All designs were reproduced in Christie's catalogue 21 March 1989. This is an album 254 × 203 mm with the watermark: C. BRENCHLEY 1804. The leaves were foliated 1–89? and later 22 leaves were razored out and then some of them replaced; this is why the suggested numeration is quite sophisticated. The album contains more than 60 of Blake's pictures including:
Canute Dark Hair & Eyes (Butlin #721) cut out Solomon (#702) cut out Cassibelane The British Chief (#716) cut out Boadicea (#717) cut out Merlin (cut out) [called A Welsh Bard, Job or Moses?] Queen Eleanor of Henry II of England and mother of Richard I of England (#727) cut out Owen Glendower (#743–744) cut out John, King of England (#731) cut out Henry Percy (Hotspur) (#745) cut out Wat Tyler by Wm Blake, from his spectre (#737) cut out Tax gatherer killed by Wat Tyler (#742) cut out The Empress Maud, mother of Henry II of England (#725) cut out Wat Tyler's daughter (#741) cut out Faulconberg the Bastard (#730) cut out Alexander the Great Henry V of England The Black Prince Robin Hood Pharaoh who knew Joseph Joseph's Mistress (Potiphar's wife) Perkin Warbeck Vortigern Rowena John Felton the assassinator of the Duke Buckingham John Milton when a Boy John Milton when Young Charlemagne John Milton's Youngest Daughter John Milton's Eldest Daughter Bertrand de Gurdon who wounded Richard Coeur de Lion with an arrow The Captain to Richard I who Flayd Bertrand de Gurdon alive Jack Sheppard under the Gallows Colonel Blood who attempted to steal the Crown The Great Earl of Warwick Brother to Edward IV Isabella of France wife of Edward II and mother of Edward III Robert Bruce King of Scotland Geoffrey of Monmouth Ossian Cornelius Agrippa