Watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Urizen
after <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39" aria-label="More by William Blake" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">William Blake</a>
Plate 3 Urizen Oh Flames Furious Desires
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
actions: postures and motions
adults
Blake, William, ‘Urizen’
creation
emotions, concepts and ideas
fire
flying
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
male
man
natural phenomena
nudes
people
running
universal concepts
paper unique watercolour
18 October 2008 – 5 April 2009
2009-04-05
18 October 2008 – 19 April 2009
2009-04-19
2008-10-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2008-10-18
Blake and Collins
Collection based display
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
1 November 2011 – 19 February 2012
2012-02-19
2011-11-01
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
15 November 2021 – 10 April 2022
2022-04-10
15 November 2021 – 10 April 2022
2022-04-10
2021-11-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2021-11-15
Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and his Contemporaries
Collection based display
Plate 3 of ‘Urizen’: Oh! Flames of Furious Desires’
support: 60 × 98 mm
frame: 290 × 283 × 20 mm
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-plate-3-of-urizen-oh-flames-of-furious-desires-n05190" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05190</span></a> <b>Plate 3 of <i>Urizen:</i> ‘Oh! Flames of Furious Desires’</b>
<br/>
<br/>N 05190 /-
<br/>Watercolour 60×99 (2 3/8×3 5/8) on paper 213×206 (8 3/8×8 1/8)</p>
<p>Inscribed, not by Blake, ‘Oh! Flames of furious desires’ below design Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<br/>PROVENANCE ?Carfax and Co. 1904; Miss Carthew
<br/>EXHIBITED ?Carfax 1904 (15); ?Carfax 1906 (79b); <i>Wartime Acquisitions, 2<sup>nd</sup> Exhibition</i>, CEMA tour 1944–5 (4); Port Sunlight 1950 (14); Edinburgh 1969 (52)
<br/>LITERATURE Piloo Nanavutty, ‘A Title-Page in Blake's illustrated Genesis Manuscript’, <i>Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes</i>, x, 1947, p.114; Beer 1969, p.79: Mitchell 1978, p.145
<br/></p>
<p>Although this was included in the first edition of this catalogue (1957, p.38 no.10) it was doubted in the second (1971, p.33 no.13). It is in fact a copy of the design in the second set of <i>A Small Book of Designs</i> of 1796 (Butlin 1981, no.261 <i>4</i>, pl.353). It is on different, thicker <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> than <span>A03373</span>, <span>A03374</span>, and <span>N03896</span> and seems to be entirely executed in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a>, including what should be the printed outlines of the design. Nor can its history be traced earlier than 1904, if that far.
<br/>
<br/>The original design occurs at the top of plate 3 of <i>Urizen</i> (repr. Erdman <i>Illuminated Blake</i> 1974, p.185) and it is included in both copies of <i>A Small Book of Designs</i>, that already mentioned and the first issue of 1794 (Butlin no.260 <i>9</i>, pl.314). The version from the second, dismembered <i>Small Book of Designs</i> (Keynes Collection, Fitzwillam Museum, Cambridge) has been trimmed and lacks the usual title in Blake's hand. It is however inscribed on the back, not by Blake, ‘Oh! Flames of Furious Desires’; the supposed lost title is presumably the origin of that inscribed on the Tate's copy.
<br/>
<br/>The Keynes copy of this design was acquired by W. Graham Robertson in 1904 (Preston 1952, pp.253–4 no.136) and would have been acknowledged as belonging to him had he lent it to the Carfax exhibitions of that year and 1906. The work exhibited by Carfax is therefore presumably the Tate's copy, unless it was yet another copy such as that sold at Sotheby's on 17 December 1970 (14 as by ‘Blake’ and therefore presumably thought not to be by him) bt C. Fry.
<br/>
<br/>The design does not represent any particular passage in <i>Urizen</i> though the motif of fire recurs frequently in association with Los and Urizen, particularly the former. Damon suggests that it shows Los in the flames of inspiration (1924, p.355), the ‘flames of fierce desire’ evoked by Blake in his address ‘To the Public’ at the beginning of <i>Jerusalem</i> (Keynes <i>Writings</i> 1957, p.621). Keynes and Wolf hesitantly suggest Urizen as an alternative to Los (1953, p.70). Piloo Nanavutty's identification of the figure as Orc is less convincing; Orc, the red light of revolution in <i>Europe</i>, also of 1794, has only a minor, passive rôle in <i>Urizen</i>.
<br/>
<br/>There is what seems to be a preliminary sketch in reverse, known as ‘Pestilence’, in the Rosenwald collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington (Butlin no.230, pl.272).</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults Blake, William, ‘Urizen’ creation emotions, concepts and ideas fire flying literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) male man natural phenomena nudes people running universal concepts