Our painting is playing with some of the same ideas and feels like the same sort of period, and the ‘fresco’ like chalk ground is interesting, as is the pen and ink finishing on the tempera. William Blake’s is an altogether happier image given the figure is playing to his sheep. It is also suggestive of Welby Sherman’s engraving after Samuel Palmer of the same name and date, but here the shepherd is sitting but like ours turned away. But the sheep and other elements are there. Our painting could have been inspired by George Richmond’s engraving ‘The Shepherd’, 1827, but in our panel the shepherd is turned round facing away, and is playing a flute instead of resting on a staff. Samuel Palmer was an other of the ancients and a close friend of the family. His father, George Richmond, was one of ‘the Ancients’ who were a group of artists who formed around the visionary artist and poet William Blake. Influenced by his father and by Sir John Everett Millais, he is best known for his mosaic decorations below the dome and in the apse of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was the son of the portraitist George Richmond RA and studied at the Royal Academy Schools in the early 1860s. He is best known for his portrait work and decorative mosaics in St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Thoughts on “The Illustrated Man” by Ray Bradbury.
Thoughts on “Woolgathering” by Patti Smith.Thoughts on “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki.Thoughts on “Tristram Shandy” by Laurence Sterne.“Odyssey” by Homer: Book II – A Hero’s Son Awakens.Introduction to Songs of Experience by William Blake.Thoughts on “The Two Trees” by William Butler Yeats.“Revolutionary Dreams” by Nikki Giovanni.“To an Isle in the Water” by William Butler Yeats.Unholy Trinity: The Number Three in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”.Do you think that I am searching too deeply for hidden meaning or do you think my questions are valid? Let me know your interpretations. I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on this poem. The only explanation I can come up with is that the Shepherd recognizes that there is beauty, divinity, and holiness in the flock and seeks to nurture and protect that divinity, and to sing the praises of God’s manifestation in humanity. If that is the case, why would Christ follow and praise the flock? It seems that it would be the opposite, that the flock would follow and praise Christ the Shepherd. The biggest puzzle for me though is that at the end of the first stanza, where it is said that the Shepherd’s “tongue shall be filled with praise.” This seems to contrast the entire second stanza, which to me seems to imply that the Shepherd is Christ watching over his flock. I cannot figure out why Blake chose “strays” instead of “stays.”
The shepherd is not straying he is staying with the flock. Then the following line ends with another alliterative: “strays.” Again, something is not sitting right with me about this. He was subtly hinting at something, but I am not making the connection. It could be that Blake was just going for an alliterative effect, but that doesn’t seem right. The first thing that struck me was the repetition of the word “sweet” in the first line. This poem seems very simple, yet something about it puzzles me, and the more I think about it, the more puzzled I become. I was in the mood to read some William Blake today, so I picked up my copy of Songs of Innocence and of Experience and read the first poem which I had not yet covered in my blog, which was “The Shepherd.” It is very short, so I am including it here in the post.Īnd his tongue shall be filled with praise.įor they know when their Shepherd is nigh.
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