Louisa Albani: William Blake's Mystic Map of London

This post has been contributed by artist, educator & independent publisher Louisa Amelia Albani. Albani's latest publication, William Blake's Mystic Map of London, features her artwork and written contributions from Simon Cole. The project is inspired by William Blake's native London: 'from Golden Square near to his childhood home, to the "bar of gold" that is the River Thames, which he glimpses from his final home on the Strand, Blake offers us "the end of a golden string" and leads us through London, unveiling his "golden city" for the future, inspired by an arcane past.'

Cities have always offered walkers and thinkers a geographical landscape that is both historically familiar and strangely futuristic, that can stimulate and meditate our minds, and allow us to dream, to plan, to reinvent. In the 19th century, the poet Charles Baudelaire came up with the concept of the flâneur, whose leisurely walks around Paris reflected the impact modern cities were having on the human psyche. But much earlier, in 18th century London, we find the visionary poet and artist William Blake wandering through London, intuitively understanding and responding to the way conflicting energies inherent in city life can affect us. In fact Blake’s walks around the city reveal a very different engagement with encroaching urbanisation. Whereas the flâneur seems to detach himself from all that is around him and acts purely as an observer, Blake ‘feels’ everything, ‘feels’ the collective anxieties of his age and wants to repair what he sees as a fractured city, in the throes of industrialisation. He actively uses his creative energies, and there is a sense of urgency in his message as he travels through London, unveiling his ‘golden city’ for the future, imaginatively rebuilt from an arcane past.

A strong alchemical vein runs through Blake’s city pilgrimage. He begins his life close to Golden Square in Soho, and ends it overlooking the Thames, which he imagines as ‘a bar of gold’. During the course of his journey, he poetically offers us ‘the end of a gold string’ which he tells us will lead us to ‘Heaven’s Gate.’

With him as our visionary guide, we travel across the ever changing city landscape: from his Soho childhood spent roaming ‘the fields from Islington to Marylebone, to Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood’; onto ‘lovely Lambeth’ where ‘we begin our Foundations’; South Molton Street, ‘where I both see and hear’ and he experiences a ‘divine vision like a silent sun’; and finally, to Fountain Court, the Strand.

Although Blake’s work was deeply infused with spiritual significance, he was not an isolated ‘mystic’. He was a native Londoner, politically and socially aware of the world around him. He witnessed poverty and social injustice and wrote about it, mindful of the ‘mind-forged manacles’ that he saw as imprisoning the human spirit.

Whilst following Blake’s ‘gold string’ through the endless streets of London, I have been reminded of the Japanese art of Kintsugi (golden joinery), which uses lacquer mixed with gold to repair broken pottery. The use of gold to fill the cracks enhances the damage rather than hiding it, and gives new life to an object not by making its ‘history’ disappear but by illuminating it. That is what Blake has done for me, he’s illuminated all that I see around me in my native city. He’s used the ‘gold’ to fix this city with something divine, he’s tried to heal it, and in doing so, has brought me home.

William Blake's Mystic Map of London is available to purchase online, and Albani's artwork will be on display at Keats's House from 6 - 26 June.