FOUR FACES OF MAN

Wikipedia Commons
Original in Library of Congress
Book of Urizen
Copy G, Plate 16

First posted Aug 2014

 Songs of Innocence, Song 32, (E 19)   
"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair."     

Blake sought to translate 'The Four Faces of Man' in Eternity into expressions in the world in which we live. His goal was to build a 'Heaven in Hells despair.' He sought to remove the impediments which prevent the eternal dimensions of Music, Poetry, Painting and Architecture from becoming apparent in himself, in his London and in his earthly home.

Each of the Faces of Man derived from one of the Zoas into which the total man could be analyzed for the sake of connecting the mind to the panoply of existence.  
 
Four Faces of Man:
Music - Luvah - emotion
Poetry - Urthona - imagination
Painting - Tharmas - senses
Architecture - Urizen - reason

Milton, Plate 27 [29], (E 125) 
"But in Eternity the Four Arts: Poetry, Painting, Music,          
And Architecture which is Science: are the Four Faces of Man.
Not so in Time & Space: there Three are shut out, and only
Science remains thro Mercy: & by means of Science, the Three
Become apparent in time & space, in the Three Professions

Poetry in Religion: Music, Law: Painting, in Physic & Surgery:

That Man may live upon Earth till the time of his awaking,
And from these Three, Science derives every Occupation of Men.
And Science is divided into Bowlahoola & Allamanda."

Music is the manifestation of Luvah.

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 134, (E 403)
"Attempting to be more than Man We become less said Luvah
As he arose from the bright feast drunk with the wine of ages
His crown of thorns fell from his head he hung his living Lyre
Behind the seat of the Eternal Man & took his way
Sounding the Song of Los descending to the Vineyards bright      

Poetry is the manifestation of Urthona.

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 554)
  "The Last Judgment is not Fable or Allegory
but   Vision[.] Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct & inferior
kind of Poetry.  Vision or Imagination is a Representation of
what Eternally Exists.  Really & Unchangeably.  Fable or Allegory
is Formd by the Daughters of Memory.  Imagination is Surrounded
by the daughters of Inspiration who in the aggregate are calld
Jerusalem" 
 
Annotations to Wordsworth, (E 665)
"One Power alone makes a Poet.-Imagination The Divine Vision" 

Painting is the manifestation of Tharmas.    

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 541)
"Poetry consists in these conceptions; and shall
Painting be confined to the sordid drudgery of facsimile 
representations of merely mortal and perishing substances, and
not be as poetry and music are, elevated into its own proper
sphere of invention and visionary conception? No, it shall not 
be so!  Painting, as well as poetry and music, exists and exults 
in immortal thoughts."    

Architecture is the manifestation of Urizen.

On Virgil, (E 270)
"Mathematic Form is Eternal in the Reasoning Memory.  Living
Form is Eternal Existence.
  Grecian is Mathematic Form
  Gothic is Living Form"