The Man Sweeping the Interpreter's Parlor

The subject comes from a passage in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, which describes the Interpreter and Christian entering a Parlor full of Dust. At the Interpreter's command a Man sweeps the Parlor sending up clouds of choking Dust whereupon a Damsel is summoned to sprinkle the Parlor with water after which the cleansing is completed with ease. The Interpreter explains that the Parlor represents the heart of Man unsanctified by the Grace of the Gospel, Dust is the Original Sin, with the Man sweeping and the Damsel being respectively personifications of the Law and the Gospel. Blake's illustration captures the essence of Bunyan's parable in portraying the very moment that the Damsel at the left initiates her sprinkling of water over the eddying clouds of dust that billow round the bearded and curiously winged personification of Law to the right. The small menacing figures of Sin chat can be discerned at the periphery of the clouds of Dust are as yet undampened and uncontrolled.

The precise technique for this striking image is uncertain and has been variously described as 'woodcut on copper', 'woodcut on pewter' and 'relief etching and white-line engraving'. Robert N Essick (op. cit., pp. 102, 110) describes the medium as 'white-line metal cut’ and leaves open the question as to whether this plate 'is copper or pewter, and whether it was incised with acid, graver, drypoint needle, or all three'. It is undoubtedly a relief work of sorts and the printed result with its dramatic interplay of light and dark is ideally suited to the spiritual subject portrayed. In many ways the effect, especially in this richly inked and atmospheric impression of the first state, is reminiscent of the 'dark-field' monotypes of G. B. Castiglione (1616-1670) although it is unlikely that Blake had any knowledge of the Italian master's few impressions in this medium.