When the Morning Stars Sang Together (1874)

Title

When the Morning Stars Sang Together (1874)

Student Commentary:

This plate from Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job (1874 reprint) is broken up into five areas (in addition to its frame) due to the way God, in the center of the image, splits the page. Blake may have chosen this arrangement to accommodate all of the material that he was attempting to explain visually. As usual with this work, Blake surrounded the central image with his own selection of symbolic texts. Among the most beautiful parts of this illustration is the way Blake engraved the four figures at the top of the central image. The plate is intended to portray “when the morning stars sang together,” and in this case, Blake made it almost literal by placing the four figures singing among the stars.

Links:

Detailed View of Image at the William Blake Archive

About this Book

Source

William Blake@Union Digital Collection