Title: The Ghost of a Flea
Date: 1819-1820
Medium: tempera heightened with gold leaf on mahogany panel
Dimensions: 21,5 × 16 cm
The Ghost of a Flea is a small scale painting by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake. Although Ghost of a Flea is one of Blake's smallest works, it is monumental in its imagination. Its tiny scale achieves drama in contrasting the muscular bulk and power of the creature against its incarnation in the panel as an insect. The flea is reincarnated as an eerie hominid, haunting the night corridors with the bowl in which he uses to collects human blood. Hunched and scaly with a tongue that slides back and forth between his lips, he carries a knife and cup of gore with dreadful intent , a far more grotesque creature than his insect counterpart. According to Blake's friend John Varley, "Blake saw the ghost in a vision. The flea told him that fleas were inhabited by the souls of such men, as were by nature bloodthirsty to excess." The flea is an image which scared some of those who viewed it, mainly children. This image is an earley depiction of an otherworldy creature which parents would use to scare their children into doing what they asked. This early monster can be compared to a modern day horror or monster film, its an image that haunts the viewers very mind and has been known to cause horrific dreams in some
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