"Sir Joshua praises Michael Angelo. 'Tis Christian mildness when knaves praise a foe; But 'twould be madness, all the world would say, Should Michael Angelo praise Sir Joshua-- Christ used the Pharisees in a rougher way."
In answer to this we can but say that Sir Joshua was not a Pharisee, and that Blake was not Christ.
Blake's resentment against Sir Joshua seems to have begun at an interview when, a very young man, he had shown him some designs, and had been "recommended to work with less extravagance and more simplicity, and to correct his drawings." That was the sort of advice that he never would take at any time. One would have thought that if Sir Joshua was so palpably a Pharisee, Blake would not have troubled to ask his advice.
As the years passed, the significant facts about Sir Joshua and Blake were that the one was famous and rich, the other was unrecognized and poor. Blake's vision, sharpened just here by the injustice of fame, was preternaturally quick to discover that Sir Joshua was earthy and of the earth, while his own aim was the so much loftier one of piercing to the heavenly reality, and then expressing it by clear, definite, and "sweet outlines," and making the colours, lights, and shades serve to emphasize the heaven-revealing lines.
Sir Joshua died February 23rd, 1792. His coffin was carried to St Paul's followed by ninety coaches, and the most eloquent man of the day, Burke, was bidden to sing his praises. In 1808, when everyone was reading the collected _Discourses_ of Reynolds, Blake too read, and as his custom was, made copious marginal notes. With the help of these we are able to relate Blake to Reynolds with a dispassionateness to which Blake could never attain.
What must strike any impartial reader of the _Discourses_ is the extraordinary similarity of the aims of art there set forth with Blake's own cherished views. Both give the supreme place to Michael Angelo and extol Raphael. Both depreciate the Venetian and Flemish Schools. Both reckon good drawing the foundation of great art. The difference between them is mainly one of emphasis. Blake believed in impulse and instinct, and Sir Joshua in theoretical and reasoned deliberation. Yet the reasonable man writes: "If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion, before we act, life would be at a stand, and art would be impracticable." And again: "I mean to caution you against ... an unfounded distrust of the imagination and feeling in favour of narrow, partial, confined, argumentative theories." Both extol the grand style--with a difference. Reynolds's conception of the grand style is derived from the laborious study of the excellencies of many masters. When he attains to it, he is an epitome of those excellencies.