{"label":"Socrates","metadata":[{"label":"Date","value":"ca. 1819-1820"}],"description":"Blake's drawing in near profile looking to the left is generally similar to traditional portraits of Socrates, such as the sculpted bust in the Farnese Gallery (reproduced in a mid-eighteeenth-century engraving by George Vertue) and a profile engraved by Michael Van Der Gucht (1660-1725). There is also a group of eight outline profiles of Socrates in Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy, 1:*175, some quite similar to Blake's drawing except for his distinctive treatment of the eyelid. Mellor 1978, 67-69, has analyzed the prominent segmentation of the forehead of Blake's \"Socrates\" as a response to Lavater's comments on the philosopher's physiognomy and to Spurzheim's phrenological principles.\r\nBlake's several written references to Socrates (469-399 B.C.) offer a mixture of criticism for the Athenian philosopher's analytical rationalism and praise for his intellectual independence. Blake seems to have identified with Socrates as a fellow victim of malicious critics. On plate 93 of Jerusalem (ca. 1804-20), Blake pictured three figures, each inscribed with the name of one of Socrates' accusers, as a historical parallel to the trinity of false accusers (Hand, Hyler, Scofield) in Blake's reconstitution of his own life into myth. Such associations were supported by what Blake believed to be a similarly between his physiognomy and Socrates'. In 1825, Henry Crabb Robinson asked Blake, \"What resemblance do you suppose is there between your Spirit & the Spirit of Socrates?\" Blake replied, \" 'The same as between our countenances.' He paused & added, 'I was Socrates.' And then as if correcting himself: 'a sort of brother-I must have had conversations with him-so I had with Jesus Christ-I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.'\" [1] One of the physical resemblances Blake refers to was a snub nose, prominent in the \"Visionary Head\" and several of the profiles in Lavater. Blake also believed that Christ shared this feature: \"The Vision of Christ that thou dost see/ Is my Visions Greatest Enemy/ Thine has a great hook nose like thine/ Mine has a snub nose like to mine.\" [2]\r\nOne of the profiles on the verso of this \"Visionary Head\" is similar to a face, also probably by Varley, on page 12 of the Blake-Varley sketchbook (private collection, England; Butlin 1981, No.  692.12). Two of the verso sketches also bear some resemblance to a portrayal of \"Conceit\" in Varley's Zodiacal Physiognomy. Another visionary head of Socrates, drawn ca. 1820, is in the Yale Center for British Art. [3] This portrait is very similar to the Huntington drawing, but shows the face in full profile, without the brow ridge of the right eye, and with a smaller left eye. A tracing, probably by Linnell, of the Huntington version is in the collection of G. Ingli James, Cardiff (reproduced in James 1979).\r\n\r\nNotes\r\n1. Bentley 1969, 310.\r\n2.\"The Everlasting Gospel,\" ca. 1818; Blake 1982, 524. Five lines later, Blake mentions Socrates, again in the context of false accusation and martyrdom. For a discussion of these interconnections between Blake, Jesus, and Socrates, see David V. Erdman, \" 'Terrible Blake in His Pride': An Essay on the Everlasting Gospel,\" in From Sensibility to Romanticism, ed. Frederick W. Hilles and Harold Bloom (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 343-44.\r\n3. Butlin 1981, No.  926. Also reproduced in Keynes 1927, Pl. 44.","related":[{"format":"text/html","label":"View details","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/103/socrates"}],"rendering":[{"format":"text/html","label":"View details","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/103/socrates"}],"sequences":[{"label":"default","canvases":[{"label":"R.000-50","width":1658,"height":2560,"images":[{"resource":{"service":{"profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","tiles":[{"width":256,"height":256,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"},{"width":512,"height":512,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"},{"width":1024,"height":1024,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"}],"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/20639"},"format":"image/jpeg","width":1658,"height":2560,"@type":"dctypes:Image","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/20639/full/full/0/default.jpg","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"},"motivation":"sc:painting","on":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-103/canvas/1062056","@type":"oa:Annotation","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-103/annotation/1062056","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"@type":"sc:Canvas","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-103/canvas/20639","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"@type":"sc:Sequence","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-103/sequence/default","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"logo":[{"@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/internal/media/logodispatcher/Huntington_Wordmark_SingleLine_L1Green.jpg"}],"@type":"sc:Manifest","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-103/manifest","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json","thumbnail":[{"service":{"profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/20639"},"@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/20639/full/%21100%2C100/0/default.jpg"}]}