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Drawings

Socrates

Type
Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date
ca. 1819-1820
Accession number
000.50
Maker
William Blake(Opens in new tab) (British, 1757–1827)
Dimensions
8 11/16 x 5 13/16 in. (22 x 14.8 cm.) sheet: 12 5/16 x 7 15/16 in. (31.3 x 20.1 cm.)
Medium
graphite pencil on paper
Description
Blake's drawing in near profile looking to the left is generally similar to traditional portraits of Socrates, such as the sculpted bust in the Farnese Gallery (reproduced in a mid-eighteeenth-century engraving by George Vertue) and a profile engraved by Michael Van Der Gucht (1660-1725). There is also a group of eight outline profiles of Socrates in Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy, 1:*175, some quite similar to Blake's drawing except for his distinctive treatment of the eyelid. Mellor 1978, 67-69, has analyzed the prominent segmentation of the forehead of Blake's "Socrates" as a response to Lavater's comments on the philosopher's physiognomy and to Spurzheim's phrenological principles. Blake's several written references to Socrates (469-399 B.C.) offer a mixture of criticism for the Athenian philosopher's analytical rationalism and praise for his intellectual independence. Blake seems to have identified with Socrates as a fellow victim of malicious critics. On plate 93 of Jerusalem (ca. 1804-20), Blake pictured three figures, each inscribed with the name of one of Socrates' accusers, as a historical parallel to the trinity of false accusers (Hand, Hyler, Scofield) in Blake's reconstitution of his own life into myth. Such associations were supported by what Blake believed to be a similarly between his physiognomy and Socrates'. In 1825, Henry Crabb Robinson asked Blake, "What resemblance do you suppose is there between your Spirit & the Spirit of Socrates?" Blake replied, " 'The same as between our countenances.' He paused & added, 'I was Socrates.' And then as if correcting himself: 'a sort of brother-I must have had conversations with him-so I had with Jesus Christ-I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.'" [1] One of the physical resemblances Blake refers to was a snub nose, prominent in the "Visionary Head" and several of the profiles in Lavater. Blake also believed that Christ shared this feature: "The Vision of Christ that thou dost see/ Is my Visions Greatest Enemy/ Thine has a great hook nose like thine/ Mine has a snub nose like to mine." [2] One of the profiles on the verso of this "Visionary Head" is similar to a face, also probably by Varley, on page 12 of the Blake-Varley sketchbook (private collection, England; Butlin 1981, No. 692.12). Two of the verso sketches also bear some resemblance to a portrayal of "Conceit" in Varley's Zodiacal Physiognomy. Another visionary head of Socrates, drawn ca. 1820, is in the Yale Center for British Art. [3] This portrait is very similar to the Huntington drawing, but shows the face in full profile, without the brow ridge of the right eye, and with a smaller left eye. A tracing, probably by Linnell, of the Huntington version is in the collection of G. Ingli James, Cardiff (reproduced in James 1979). Notes 1. Bentley 1969, 310. 2."The Everlasting Gospel," ca. 1818; Blake 1982, 524. Five lines later, Blake mentions Socrates, again in the context of false accusation and martyrdom. For a discussion of these interconnections between Blake, Jesus, and Socrates, see David V. Erdman, " 'Terrible Blake in His Pride': An Essay on the Everlasting Gospel," in From Sensibility to Romanticism, ed. Frederick W. Hilles and Harold Bloom (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 343-44. 3. Butlin 1981, No. 926. Also reproduced in Keynes 1927, Pl. 44.
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Department
European Art
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