Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/32

 xxvi become so odious to him, is clearly discernible from many of those works; even if we had not his own explicit declaration on the point in a letter written as late as 1799, where he says: "The purpose for which alone I live,... is... to renew the lost art of the Greeks," and at the same time professes himself willing to execute "a number of cabinet pictures, which I flatter myself will not be unworthy of a scholar of Rembrandt and Teniers" (both soon to be included in the same category with the Venetians and Correggio), "whom I have studied no less than Raphael and Michael Angelo." The "Christ blessing little Children" and the "Flight into Egypt," both dated 1790, are the earliest of the series known to me. In the former of these the Venetian feeling is strongly perceptible, especially in a standing female figure, clothed in bluish green, with an infant in her arms, and in the landscape background; while the diminutive children vividly recall some Greek reliefs of the fifth century. Somewhat later in date is the strange "Nativity," which is one of the artist's boldest and most beautiful inventions. Mary, swooning in the miraculous childbirth, is sustained by Joseph; while the Divine Infant, clothed with supernatural light, leaps forth upon the air. Elizabeth holds out her arms to receive Him; and the tiny Baptist, upon her knees, folds his hands in adoration. The