Opening the Doors of Perception

In the journey of Job to new understanding, William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job concentrate on two climactic moments. In one, Blake imagines Job and his wife seeing God face to face (as the biblical quotations beneath indicate, this is God in Christ). In the other, Job prays for his friends. One climax is epistemological; the other is ethical. This is the first of them.

What we see in this image is a divine figure surrounded by a bright halo of light, stretching out both hands to bless Job’s wife and Job. The three comforters have their backs to this event, all with heads in hands, but with the central figure taking a surreptitious glimpse at the event taking place behind him. The backdrop, vaguely visible, is of mountains, with the glimmer of light coming on the right (east). In the margins there is little but a cumulus cloud outline, and at the bottom an angel presiding with eyes closed over open books and a scroll.

This is the crucial plate of his Illustrations of the Book of Job. It has as its main text Job 42:5, and encapsulates the way in which Blake reads the whole book. Here is exemplified Blake’s frequent contrast between ‘Memory’ (‘I have heard [of] thee by the hearing of the Ear’) and ‘Inspiration’ (‘but now mine Eye seeth thee’). It depicts the moment when, to quote the words of the Preface to Blake’s Milton, a Poem, ‘the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration’ (Erdman 2008: 95).

Blake’s understanding was profoundly influenced by the idea of the mutual indwelling of God and humanity, one of the central themes of the Gospel of John. This is evidenced in the profusion of Johannine quotations from the farewell discourses at the foot of the engraving. True insight comes from participation in God, as Job and his wife are bathed in Christ’s light.

Spiritual and mental transformation is incomplete, however, without ethical transformation. It is Job’s action in praying for his friends that will fully demonstrate his release from captivity.

References

http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3643616 [accessed 22 October 2018]

Erdman, David V. (ed.). 2008. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (Garden City: Bantam Doubleday Dell)

William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job were published two years before his death in 1827 and are in many ways a testimony to his life’s work.

In the first engraving of the series (Plate 1), Blake had chosen to show Job and his wife with books (very possibly sacred texts) open on their laps. The portrayal of Job’s subsequent experience of agony and loss then culminates here in Plate 11, with Blake imagining what Job saw in one of his dreams and visions of the night (Job 7:14).

Job sees a terrifying figure, having characteristics of the transcendent divinity depicted in earlier engravings, but entwined with a serpent who points threateningly to the law engraved on tablets of stone. Job is appalled and terrified by the threatening sight. Below are figures who would chain Job and drag him down into the fiery flames.

What seems to terrify Job is that entry to heaven consists of obedience to what is engraved on the tablets of stone (it is worth noting that in the watercolour version of this image Blake makes explicit that that it is the Decalogue which is inscribed on the stones, quoting from the Hebrew of Exodus 20:13–15), and incipient entry to hell is the consequence of disobedience. In his vision Job sees the terrifying, diabolical, character of his theology.

But by means of his night vision, Job would come to a realization of the illusory character of the theology he had received. This vision paves the way for Job to see that God is not some transcendent monster but is in Christ a divinity who is with and in him. Job declares (in words incorporated in Plate 17), ‘I have heard thee with the hearing of the Ear but now my Eye seeth thee’ (Job 42:5). It is through what Job sees, whether here in the night vision or in his vision of God (Job 38–41), that he realizes how his received theological wisdom must be turned upside down.

References

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3643610 [accessed 22 October 2018]

Job here stands erect for the first time in William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job.

With his back to the viewer and arms outstretched before a stone altar, he seems to be offering sacrifice (cf. Noah and the Rainbow, Houghton Library, Harvard, B437). Above him is part of the circle of light, which had been seen surrounding Christ in the previous plate in the series. Kneeling beside the upright Job is his wife, also bathed in light, and on his right the comforters, in shade, are bowing in obeisance. The flame from the altar moves heavenward, towards the circle of light.

The words below the image are ‘And my Servant Job shall pray for you’ (Job 42:8), and above the image ‘Also the Lord accepted Job’ (Job 42:9). Blake has picked up a contrast in the text of the book of Job. The comforters are still bound by the old ways of thinking and offer sacrifice, whereas the LORD ‘turned the captivity’ of Job, when he prayed for his friends (42:7–8, 10). The emphasis in Job 42:8 echoes Romans 12:1–2 (which is not quoted in the marginal texts): ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God’ (KJV). The open book, with its writing, glosses the major caption. Words from Matthew 5:44–45,48 start with the exhortation to ‘love one’s enemies’ and to ‘pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you’.

Thus, in the second of two climactic engravings, an ethical transformation complements an epistemological one, and together they confirm that Job is no longer the prisoner—and victim—of habit: ‘And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends’ (Job 42:10).

Dreams and visions have been the pathway to this. As part of his interpretative programme Blake focuses on the verses which mention them (Job 4:12–13; 32:8; 33:15). Only the visionary can disrupt the habits of religion—and of life more generally. Blake the artist and Job the recipient of visionary insight have this high and disturbing calling in common.

References

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3643617 [accessed 22 October 2018]