Abstract
The aim of this book is to identify the underlying physiologies of what the British poet, painter and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827), called his ‘visions.’ In doing so, I have taken the apparently novel step of assuming that when he wrote that the paintings shown in his small exhibition off Oxford Street in 1809 were derived from things ‘seen in my visions,’ he meant it (E 531). It is now possible to demonstrate that the perceptual phenomenology of his ‘visions’ are capable of being identified and assigned with a physiological basis.
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Notes
- 1.
For introductions to Blake’s life and art, see Robert N. Essick, ‘Blake, William (1757–1827),’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2585, accessed 21 Aug 2017]; G. E. Bentley, Jr., The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001); Robin Hamlyn, ‘William Blake at Work: “Every thing which is in Harmony,”’ Joyce H. Townsend and Robin Hamlyn (eds.) William Blake: The Painter at Work (London: Tate Publishing, 2003) pp. 12–39.
- 2.
On account of the multiple modalities of Blake’s hallucinations and synaesthesia, they may still be best covered by the portmanteau term ‘visions,’ the word he used himself.
- 3.
For a wide-ranging review of how the term ‘phenomenology’ might be included in hallucinations research, see Sam Wilkinson, Huw Green, Stephanie Hare, Joseph Houlders, Clara Humpston & Benjamin Alderson-Day, Thinking about hallucinations: why philosophy matters, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 27 (2022), 219–235.
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BR(2): 437. On Crabb Robinson, see Newey, Vincent. “Robinson, Henry Crabb (1775–1867), diarist and journalist.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 28. Oxford University Press. Accessed 30 Dec 2022.
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A hypothesis of Blake’s hyperphantasia is proposed in John Higgs’, William Blake vs The World (London: Orion Publishing Co, 2021) pp. 136–140. No footnote references are provided. Hyperphantasia, as so far conceptualized, is a newly identified condition (or dysfunction) arising from a perceptual over-abundance of visual imagery. As Blake insisted he had verbal auditory, as well as visual ‘visions,’ it would appear to have limited application.
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G. B. Ermentrout and J.D. Cowan, ‘A Mathematical Theory of Visual Hallucination Patterns,’ Biological Cybernetics 34 (1979) pp. 137–150; Paul C. Bressloff, J.D. Cowan, M. Golubitsky, P.J. Thomas, M. Wiener, ‘Geometric visual hallucinations, Euclidean symmetry and the functional architecture of striate cortex,’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences B 356 (2001) pp. 299–330.
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Paul C. Bressloff and Jack D. Cowan, ‘The functional geometry of local and horizontal connections in a model of V1,’ Journal of Physiology-Paris 97 (2003) pp. 221–236.
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Jack D. Cowan, ‘Geometric visual hallucinations and the structure of the visual cortex,’ Daniel Collerton, Urs Peter Mosimann, Elaine Perry (eds.) The Neuroscience of Visual Hallucinations (2014) chapter 10, pp. 217–253, cited on p. 228. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118892794.
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Some evidence exists to suggest that fMRI can be used to predict subjective responses to retinotopic patterns in V1, Yukiyasu Kamitani and Frank Tong, ‘Decoding the Visual and Subjective Contents of the Human Brain,’ Nature Neuroscience 8.5 (2005): 679–685.
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S. Zeki and M. Lamb, ‘The neurology of kinetic art,’ Brain 117 (1994) pp. 607–636.
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A good starting point for a review of the debate, and an important contribution towards resolving it, is, Crawford I.P. Winlove, Fraser Milton, Jake Ranson, Jon Fulford, Matthew MacKisack, Fiona Macpherson, Adam Zeman, The neural correlates of visual imagery: A co-ordinate-based meta-analysis, Cortex, 105 (2018) pp. 4–25.
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David Worrall, ‘Les Relations de William Blake et de Mécènes, vues sous L’Angle de la Neurologie,’ in Le Mécènat litteraire oaux XIXe et XXe siècles, ed. Anne Struve-Debeaux (Paris: Editions Hermann, 2019) pp. 119–139.
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Nicolas Rothen, Beat Meier, Jamie Ward, Enhanced memory ability: Insights from synaesthesia, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36 (2012) pp. 1952–1963.
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Paul Youngquist, Madness and Blake’s Myth (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989) p. 42.
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M.M. Ohayon, ‘Prevalence of hallucinations and their pathological associations in the general population,’ Psychiatry Res, 997 (2000), pp. 153–164.
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Vanessa Beavan, John Read & Claire Cartwright (2011), The prevalence of voice-hearers in the general population: A literature review, Journal of Mental Health, 20:3, 281–292.
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Mary Jane Spiller, Clare N. Jonas, Julia Simner, Ashok Jansari, ‘Beyond visual imagery: How modality-specific is enhanced mental imagery in synesthesia?, Consciousness and Cognition, 31 (2015) pp. 73–85. For a nuances to that paper’s findings, see David Brang, EunSeon Ahn, Double-blind study of visual imagery in grapheme-color synesthesia, Cortex, 117 (2019) pp. 89–95.
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Pidgeon, L. M., Grealy, M., Duffy, A. H. B., Hay, L., McTeague, C., Vuletic, T., Coyle, D. and Gilbert, S. J. (2016), Functional neuroimaging of visual creativity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Brain and Behavior, 6: 1–26.
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For Blake’s ability to caricature contemporary royalty and political figures, see Alexander S. Gourlay, “‘Idolatry or Politics’: Blake’s Chaucer, the Gods of Priam, & the Powers of 1809.” Prophetic Character: Essays on William Blake in Honor of John E. Grant (ed.) Alexander S. Gourlay (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill P, 2002). pp. 97–147.
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Adam Zeman, Matthew MacKisack, John Onians, The Eye’s mind – Visual imagination, neuroscience and the humanities, Cortex, 105 (2018) pp. 1–3.
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Joel Pearson, Colin W.G. Clifford, Frank Tong, The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception, Current Biology, 18 (2008) pp. 982–986.
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For a key paper at the beginning of this debate, see Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1973). What the mind’s eye tells the mind’s brain: A critique of mental imagery. Psychological Bulletin, 80(1), 1–24.
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Right-handedness has a lower correlation than left-handedness with schizophrenia, Hirnstein, Marco, and Kenneth Hugdahl. “Excess of Non-Right-Handedness in Schizophrenia: Meta-Analysis of Gender Effects and Potential Biases in Handedness Assessment.” British Journal of Psychiatry 205 (2014) pp. 260–267.
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Durjoy Lahiri, Stefano F. Cappa, Left hemispheric stroke in a professional artist: A prospective case study, Cortex, 138 (2021) pp. 203–211.
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Bradford A. Richardson, MD, Alexandra M. Rusyniak, W. George Rusyniak, Jr, MD, Charles B. Rodning, MD, PhD, Neuroanatomical Interpretation of the Painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, Neurosurgery 81 (2017) pp. 389–396.
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Julio Montes-Santiago, ‘Chapter 9 – The lead-poisoned genius: Saturnism in famous artists across five centuries,’ Stanley Finger, Dahlia W. Zaidel, François Boller and Julien Bogousslavsky (eds.), Progress in Brain Research 203 (2013) pp. 223–240. Bartlomiej Piechowski-Jozwiak and Julien Bogousslavsky consider migraine, but their chapter makes no reference to Blake, ‘Chapter 11 – Neurological diseases in famous painters,’ Stanley Finger, Dahlia W. Zaidel, François Boller and Julien Bogousslavsky (eds.), Progress in Brain Research (203 (2013) pp. 255–275; Gabriele Cipriani, Luca Cipriani, Lucia Picchi, Mario Di Fiorino, Art is long, life is short. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), the suffering artist, Medical Hypotheses, 117 (2018) pp. 16–20.
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John Fothergill, ‘Observations on Disorders to which Painters in Water-Colours are exposed,’ The Works of John Fothergill, M.D. … with Some Account of His Life by John Coakley Lettsom (1784) 3 vols., vol. 3 pp. 377–381. Margaret DeLacy, ‘Fothergill, John (1712–1780),’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9979, accessed 3 March 2015].
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Lane Robson and Joseph Viscomi, ‘Blake’s Death,’ Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly 30 (1996) pp. 36–49.
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Richard Twiss, 13, 25 September 1794, cited in Keri Davies, ‘Mrs Bliss: a Blake Collector of 1794,’ (eds.) Steve Clark and David Worrall, Blake in the Nineties (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) pp. 212–230; Gerald P. Tyson, Joseph Johnson, A Liberal Publisher (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1979).
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BR(2): p. 556, the underlining is in Bentley.
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Alexander Jacques Francois Brierre De Boismont, Hallucinations or, the Rational History of Apparitions, visions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism and Somnambulism (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1853) p. 85.
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See Colin Trodd’s discussion of the responses of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats, Visions of Blake: William Blake in the Art Word 1830–1930 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012) pp. 375–378. Trodd cites Richard Garnett, William Blake: Painter and Poet (1895) p. 75.
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Representative studies include, L.A. Duncan-Johnstone, A Psychological Study of William Blake (London: Psychology Guild, 1945) and W.P. Witcutt, Blake: A Psychological Study (London: Hollis & Carter 1945); George Wingfield Digby, Symbol and Image in William Blake (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); Daniel Majdiak and Brian Wilkie, ‘Blake and Freud: Poetry and Depth Psychology,’ Journal of Aesthetic Education 6 (1972) pp. 87–98; Morris Eaves, ‘Postscript: Blake’s Abnormal Psychology,’ Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 9 (1976) pp. 121–122; Diane Hume George, Blake and Freud (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); David Punter, ‘Blake, Trauma and the Female,’ New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 15 (1984) pp. 475–490; Brenda Webster, Blake’s Prophetic Psychology (Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1984); Elaine Kauvar, ‘The Sorrows of Thel: A Freudian Interpretation of The Book of Thel,’ Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6 (1985) pp. 174–185; Jerry Caris Godard, Creating: William Blake Anticipates Freud, Jung and Rank (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985); Edward F. Edinger, Encounter with the Self: A Jungian Commentary on William Blake’s Illustrations to the Book of Job (Toronto: Inner City Book, 1986); Barbara Frieling, ‘Blake at the Rim of the World: A Jungian Consideration of Jerusalem,’ Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 8 (1987) pp. 211–218; Tilottama Rajan, ‘(Dis)figuring the System: Vision, History, and Trauma in Blake’s Lambeth Books,’ William Blake: Images and Texts, Robert N. Essick et al. (ed) (San Marino: CA: Huntington Library, 1997); June Singer, Blake, Jung and the Collective Unconscious (York Beach: Nicolas Hays Inc., 2000); Mark Lussier, Blake and Lacan (Studies in nineteenth-century British literature, 25) (New York; Frankfurt: Lang, 2008); Patrick Menneteau, ‘William Blake and the dark side of the Enlightenment: toward a reassessment of the Jungian contribution,’ Serge Soupel, Kevin L. Cope, Alexander Pettit (eds), The Enlightenment by Night: essays on after-dark culture in the long eighteenth century (New York: AMS Press, 2010) pp. 307–342.
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G.E. Bentley Jr., The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) pp. 21, 382; Jon Mee, Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
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John Higgs, William Blake vs The World (London: Orion Publishing Co, 2021) pp. 14–20.
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Leopold Damrosch, Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015) p. 39.
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Laura Quinney, William Blake on Self and Soul (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009) p. 22.
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Naomi Billingsley, The Visionary Art of William Blake: Christianity, Romanticism and the Pictorial Imagination (London: T&T Clark, 2018) pp. 1, 2, 147–149, 152–154, 156–157. There are several versions of this painting, not all extant, see Butlin: 639, 642, 645.
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Jonathan Roberts, ‘William Blake’s Visionary Landscape near Felpham,’ Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly 47 (2013) http://128.151.244.100/blakeojs/index.php/blake/article/view/roberts472/roberts472html.
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Butlin: 639–648.
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For Blake’s aesthetics, see Daniel Schierenbeck, ‘“Sublime Labours”: Aesthetics and Political Economy in Blake’s Jerusalem,’ Studies in Romanticism 46 (2007), pp. 21–42; Peter Otto, ‘Politics, Aesthetics, and Blake’s “bounding line,”’ Word & Image 26 (2010) pp. 172–185); Mike Goode, ‘The Joy of Looking: What Blake’s Pictures Want,’ Representations 119 (2012) pp. 1–36.
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On ‘entoptic,’ the current OED definition is not entirely satisfactory, ‘relating to the appearance of the different internal structures of the eye,’ ‘ento-, prefix.’ OED Online. March 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/62905?redirectedFrom=entoptic (accessed March 22, 2015). Even in current scientific literature at the peer-reviewed journal article level, the word ‘entoptic’ is sometimes misspelled.
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S. Foster Damon, William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols (New York: Peter Smith, 1947) pp. 10, 196–211. Foster Damon’s, A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake (1965), received updating editions in 1988 and 2013, both edited by Morris Eaves.
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The founding work is E.R. Jaensch, Eidetic Imagery and Typological Methods of Investigation, trans. Oscar Oeser (London: Kegan Paul, 1930). See also, Bo H. Lindberg, ‘William Blake’s visions and the Unio Artistica,’ Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis (Stockholm) 5 (1970) pp. 141–167.
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Confusingly, the older term ‘eidetic’ has sometimes recently been used to describe palinopsia (after-image) type events, marking a return to early twentieth-century usage, e.g. Allport, G.W. (1924), Eidetic Imagery. British Journal of Psychology. General Section, 15: 99–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1924.tb00168.x.
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James Deville, William Blake, plaster cast of head, 1823, NPG 1809; bronze casting, 1953, NPG 1809a, National Portrait Gallery, London.
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Worrall, D. (2024). Introduction. In: William Blake's Visions. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53254-2_1
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