Page 7 - Richard Kenton Webb: John Milton's Paradise Lost

Webb’s huge assemblage of linocuts, massive, panoramic line draw -
ings in charcoal and chalk, and sudden explosions of colour painting
seize our attention through their sheer scale and profusion.

Perhaps the key visual precursor is John Martin’s renowned mezzo -
tints, placing tiny figures in vast expanses to convey scale and
sublim ity. But other styles visibly add to Webb’s mix: John Flaxman’s
illus tra tions of Dante; Masaccio’s Italianate landscapes; de Chirico’s
meta physical art; even Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde shark faintly
shadowed in Webb’s enigmatic vitrines.

The combined effect is arresting, disturbing, and moving in equal
measure. A work not just of emulation but of self-realization too.
The seed of that self-realization being the personal and profes sional
inspiration that Webb found in the poem in a time of crisis.

As a grateful Adam to the archangel Michael, so Webb to Milton’s
Paradise Lost:

O Prophet of glad tidings, finisher
Of utmost hope!*

Professor Hugh Adlington

Hugh Adlington is Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. He is highly
respected as an international Milton scholar, having convened the British Milton Seminar since
2010, given the 9th Annual Milton Lecture, at the Mercers’ Hall, London, in 2020, and published
two seminal works on the subject in 2012 and 2016.

*Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 375–6