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Drawings

Old Parr When Young

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Type
Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date
1820
Accession number
000.48
Maker
William Blake(Opens in new tab) (British, 1757–1827)
Dimensions
11 3/16 x 6 1/2 in. (28.4 x 16.5 cm.) sheet: 11 3/4 x 14 1/2 in. (29.8 x 36.8 cm.) mat: 14 15/16 x 10 7/16 in. (38 x 26.5 cm.)
Medium
pencil on laid paper
Description
Thomas, or "Old," Parr died on 15 November 1635 at what he claimed to be the age of 152 years 9 months. Blake may have learned of this legendary hero of longevity from John Taylor's popular essay and poem, The Old, Old, Very Old Man: or, The Age and Long Life of Thomas Par. [1] There are a number of seventeeth and eighteenth-century engraved portraits of Parr, but all those I have seen show him in age and look nothing like Blake's full-length portrayal. Rossetti 1863, 245, describes Blake's drawing as "a perfectly naked figure, aiming probably to represent a man admirably constituted for vital strength and endurance. Carefully drawn, with the short thorax characteristic of Blake's figures." Parr was famous for his physical vitality, even as a centenarian, and Blake's visionary figure of him at the youthful age of 40 would seem to be a muscular representative of the "Strong Man," one of the "three general classes of men" Blake pictured in "The Ancient Britons" (untraced since 1809; Butlin 1981, No. 657) and discussed in A Descriptive Catalogue of 1809. [2] Blake drew a very similar figure, with alterations in the positions of the limbs, to portray "The Symbolic Figure of the Course of Human History Described by Dante" in one of his watercolors of ca. 1824-27 illustrating the Divine Comedy (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Butlin 1981, No. 812.28). Notes 1.First published London, 1635, and frequently reprinted. Parr is also mentioned by Rapin, "Preface" to Blake's Milton (ca. 1804-1808); Blake 1982, 95. For the relevant passages in Rapin, see the translation by N. Tindal, 2d ed. (London: Knapton, 1732-33), 1:628 note 7, 2:294. 2. Blake 1982, 542-45.
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Department
European Art
Find out more
View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)
Blake began, in 1819, to draw the portraits of characters both historical and imaginary he would conjure up before his mind's eye. This is one of the few so-called "Visionary Heads" that shows the whole body of the person. Thomas Par was a famous example of longevity who died in 1635 at the supposed age of 152. Blake portrays him with heroic musculature symbolizing spiritual vitality.

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