HENRY JOHN STOCK (1853-1930)

The present drawing was painted in 1910, the year Stock's identification with William Blake reached a climax in his move to Felpham, on the Sussex coast, where Blake had spent the years 1800-03. This drawing is not his most Blakean, although the gesture of the Angel here clearly echoes that of Christ in Michelangelo's Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel; and, as Stock must have known, Michelangelo was a powerful influence on Blake. He was perhaps also aware of Turner's late painting of The Angel standing in the Sun in the Tate Gallery, with its brilliant irridescent colours.