INTRODUCTION

Here’s a new series of posts I’m going to explore: What things inspired World of Hellmouth? I take a (re)look at, and explore, the things in the past two decades that have left a mark on me and in turn influence my creative tendencies. I like to think of it all as the ingredients of a bubbling primordial soup swirling in my head.

Eventually, something gets out of this creative primordial soup of mine and finds its own legs, evolving with its own identity. World of Hellmouth is not the first idea to become so fleshed out that it has become more than an eager lifeform trying to find a place in the world (of my mind). It has morphed into its own plane of existence, breeding new lifeforms of its own, influencing ideas with its own core ideas, its a force requiring a revisit, a review and a reminder of what came before.

There is only one idea that has reached a significant degree of development in the last decade and a half. That idea had over a hundred (single spaced) pages dedicated to it, maps, diagrams, definitions, descriptions, and so forth. This was in the late 90s and all went poof with a computer crash and no back up. Some notebooks and maps still exist, the rest lives on in my head. It’s inevitable that some of that stuff has been pulled into Hellmouth. In fact, as early as a few weeks ago I’ve officially convinced myself to fully integrate all of it into a section of the World of Hellmouth itself. This is an example that ideas never, ever, ever die. It suchs to loose months and years of hard work, but ideas are amorphous and persistent if you nurture them constantly.

Alright, with that introduction out of the way, here’s the first topic that came to mind tonight. I had an urge to revisit one of my first favorite artists, William Blake. An interest in his work goes back to highschool years but cemented in university when I started doing more out-of-class research on his life and artistic purpose.

WILLIAM BLAKE: SUMMARY

William Blake was an English artist and poet who was active during the 18th century and into the early 19th century. He was born November 1757 and died August 1827. His work falls into the Romantic Age. William Blake was under-appreciated during his life, critics considered him mad for his idiosyncratic views–Blake had a high affinity for the bible but was openly hostile to the Church of England, and much of his earlier work was primarily rebellious in character and can be seen as a protestation against dogmatic religion. In retrospect now, many critics hold him in high regard due to his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.

WHY HE’S AN INFLUENCE?

What captivated me about William Blake’s work was the deeper sorrow I couldn’t ignore in his pieces; the art referencing the mystical, or biblical imagery or icons in particular. His gesture and form were always very expressive and carried with them a magic that resonated with an emotional response within me.

“Awe” is an early feeling I recall having. It was the kind of awe that was defined by the fact that the images never left my thoughts. I recall being in philosophy classes, for example, and doodling some William Blake image that was triggered by something taught in the lecture (I’m almost positive it was the one of “God as Architect”, see below). From there I started signing out books and periodicals dedicated to his work and life and just read, or looked at image after image, for weeks, and weeks.

Below are examples of some of the art I recall admiring over a decade ago. Looking them up again was easy to spot them. I’ll try to add some info about each as I go to put them into context. The Wikipedia entry on William Blake is pretty great, detailing his life’s work, his philosophical views, his religious views, and so on.

“Ancient of Days (God as an Architect)”, 1794, relief etching with watercolor, 23 x 17 cm (9 x 7 inches)

I think what fascinated me first and foremost about this particular piece was learning that William Black wasn’t only an artist, he was also a writer. It went a step further for me because he wasn’t only a writer in the sense that he wrote things like poetry, philosophical thoughts and the like… he CREATED whole mythologies around his life work. This was a creative mind unhindered or unconcerned about how religious society and organizations reacted to his works.

This piece for example, upon a quick glance, along with the title, is easily accepted as a representation of a white-bearded God in the midst of creating the universe. If there was heavy censorship back then, this would slip past it. In fact, this figure represented here went by the name “Urizen”, and to William Blake represented the embodiment of reason and law and originates in the beginning of Blake’s version of Genesis. He was the entity created when a voice said that light should be born, he eventually creates the material world and even becomes represented as the fallen figure Satan. It’s really too much to get into here in short, and most of it still goes over my head. I encourage interested parties to check out a Wikipedia page dedicated to breaking this whole Urizen character down.

The imprtant thing I took from it is the notion of symbolic entities that exist outside of a “material plane”–entities that are architects of the world and the laws that exist in them. This is an element found in most fantasy lore and archetype frameworks, but the visuals along with this realization made their mark on me more than any literature I read since.

“The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun”, c. 1806-1809, Watercolor, 34.3 x 42 cm

“The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea”, 1805, Pen and watercolor, 40.1 × 35.6 cm

The Great Red Dragon Paintings are a series of watercolour paintings, depicting various scenes from the Book of Revelations, done between 1805 and 1810 when Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings intended to illustrate books of the Bible.

This wasn’t the first key fascination with the “Book of Revelations” in particular, but it was certainly a reconfirmation of an interest already explored when I was twelve or thirteen years old after reading Stephen King’s “The Stand” (and then watching the made for TV four-part series).

“The Lovers’ Whirlwind”, 1824 – 1827, Pen and ink and watercolour, 374 x 530 mm

The commission for Dante’s “Divine Comedy” came to Blake in 1826 with the ultimate aim of producing a series of engravings. This was regrettably cut short with Blake’s death in 1827 resulting in only seven of the engravings at proof form. The pieces I recall seeing got me interested in knowing more about the “Divine Comedy” which ultimately led to discovering Dante’s “Inferno” in greater depth. This is, at its core, one of the strongest (and likely obvious) conceptual influences on the World of Hellmouth.

Thanks to the internet many years later, you can find an assortment of annotated or summarized description of each section of the epic (thank goodness). I also recall, at about the same time, reading a Spawn issue where Al Simons goes to hell after being vanquished, and has to cross into each of the layers of Hell to get to Malebolgia.

This combination of fine art and classic literature bringing context to a comic I read, and many things I’d experience going forward, was something I found quite fascinating. It would become the backbone of many of the ideas I’d develop for World of Hellmouth–the notion of digging into a sort of “collective consciousness” of creative works that have come before and allowing it to influence some of the core structural ideas.

ADDITIONAL AFTER-THOUGHTS

Finally, I have to add another little detail about how all of this works together in the mid to late-90s as being a building block for what influences me. The detail I refer to may actually get its own “Influences” entry.

Iron Maiden was a band I reverently followed since I was eleven years old. I owned every CD up until “Fear of the Dark” when the band would split up. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer would go off and support a solo career that I folowed as well and his 5th album was entitled “Chemical Wedding” released in 1998.

I’ll avoid going into too much detail here, but the reason Iron Maiden was a huge influence on me was because of the story, lore and respect for literature and the past in general that their music embodied. It’s easy to think that one of the big daddy heavy metal bands was nothing but loud yoddling chants, but for those who take the time to READ the lyrics and follow the entire theme of each album, it’s remarkable what you’ll learn and discover, and the creative journeys these works can take you on.

As you can see by the Chemical Wedding cover, Bruce Dickinson paid homage to William Blake’s works in this release, with both artwork, with track themes, and even lyrics reciting Blake’s poems. The vibe and feeling this album conveys had, with no doubt, given a deeper perception of my already deep fascination for William Blake’s work. I now also had an audio layer added to my persistent memories!

The album art featured here is based on “The Ghost of a Flea“:

“The Ghost of a Flea”, circa. 1819-1820, Tempera mixture panel with gold on mahogany, 21.4 cm x 16.2 cm