Blake’s Lambeth home was also the scene of the spiritual apparitions captured in a major new Tate exhibition, writes the graphic novelist
When we speak of the poetry or painting of place, we generally refer to words and images that celebrate or else investigate some fixed location. And yet, given that all creative works have arisen from whatever influences surrounded their geographic point of composition, surely all art could be said to be the art of place, something that could only have emerged from that specific spot at that specific time? A city, a field, a house, a street: all of these have their own aura, their own atmosphere, a lyric condensation born of memory and history. Might it be, however, that some places have not only an embedded past, but an embedded future also? Could some works of art be already contained within their site of origin, immanent and waiting for discovery, for realisation?
If we imagine the material world about us having a concealed component of the fictional and the fantastic, visions buried in its stones and mortar waiting for their revelation, then we may suppose that 18th-century Lambeth was a teeming hub of such imaginal biodiversity. Bedlam alone could account for this ethereal population boom, but then nearby was the Hercules Buildings residence of William Blake, which can have only added to the sublime infestation.
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