The 18th century artist, William Blake, was a true radical in the deepest sense of the word, and he
raged against Injustice of every kind. Blake despised social Division and the exploitation
of workers, he detested the strict rules laid out by the church, and he loathed the scientists
who believed that the world could be dissected, measured, and explained. Perhaps most dangerously
of all, Blake hated the monarchy, and embraced the American and French revolutions, whilst
he was also a staunch abolitionist. Blake belonged to the Romantic age, but stands
utterly alone in that age, both as an artist and as a poet. He is someone who invented his very
own form of graphic art, which organically fused beautiful images with powerful poetry,
while he also forged his own distinctive philosophical worldview - and created an
original cosmology of gods and Spirits designed to express his ideas about love, freedom, nature,
and the Divine. From childhood on, Blake had visions of angels, gods, and demons, that drove his work - and
spirits that guided his every move. This leads to the question first asked 200 years ago,
that remains today: "Shall we call call him artist or genius or Mystic or madman? Probably he is all"
William Blake was born in Soho, London, in 1757, into a working-class family of religious
dissenters, with strong non-conformist beliefs. The Bible however was a major influence on his
upbringing, thinking, and eventually his artistic creations. At the age of eight he had his first
vision, when he saw a tree full of angels when he was walking on Peckham Rye in London. His father
threatened to thrash him for lying, before his mother stepped in. That Visionary experience
would be followed by many more throughout his life, and he would repeatedly draw on
those visions to inform his artwork. Even now, the intersection between Blake's mysticism and his
madness is something that is debated. As a child he was imaginative, rebellious, and headstrong. He
had a precocious talent for art, and so instead of going to a regular school, Blake's parents
sent him to Henry Parr's drawing school in central London - at the age of 10. Someone of
his background was never expected to be an artist, and so at 14 he began an an apprenticeship as a
printer. And after seven years of technical training, he qualified as a professional engraver.
William Blake is unique, in that he isn't just an artist, he is also one of the greatest
poets in the English language. But his art and his poetry are in fact completely intertwined,
and for Blake his words WERE images. Most of his art appears as part of his self-published
handcoloured books, which he wrote, printed, and made by hand. Creating every one individually.
All of them different. He only issued a small number of them over his career, and his work was barely known
in his lifetime. The 18th century had been dominated by the intellectual movement known
as the "Enlightenment", which believed in the power of reason, and advocated for science, technology, and
logic. Blake however was part of the Romantic Movement a counter movement which challenged
Enlightenment thinking. Preferring imagination, spirituality, and mysticism. The books Blake
created were prophecies, poems, philosophical treatises and sometimes satires. His work addresses
contemporary subjects like social inequality and poverty, child exploitation, racial discrimination,
and religious hypocrisy. "The Ancient of Days" was a cover or frontispiece to one of those books:
"Europe a prophecy". One of the best examples of his unique Style. When he began to think
about producing his poetry, Blake wanted to free himself from the need for patronage, printers, or
Publishers, and so he decided that he would be the sole manufacturer of his artistic product
in a bid to give himself true intellectual Freedom. It was a decision driven by ideological as well as
aesthetic reasons. With no one else to print or publish his work, he didn't have to worry about
censorship and could express his radical, and to many, unpalatable ideas, on his own terms.
Blake's younger brother Robert, died at the age of 25, in 1787, of tuberculosis. At the
moment of his death, Blake saw his Spirit rise towards the ceiling "clapping its hands for Joy".
Not long after, Robert appeared to him in a dream and gave to William The Secret of "Illuminated printing".
This is a complex process of etching AND printing, using the relief technique.
But whereas other printers would print text and images for Illustrated books separately,
on two different presses, using different copper plates, Blake created the image and text on
one plate, and used one rolling press. A total innovation, meaning the picture and poem are
fully integrated as a single complete art object. Blake trained himself to draw and write backwards
and would paint in mirror writing directly onto a copper plate, using an acid resistant varnish.
When the varnish dried, he would create a wax bath where he would pour the nitric acid, which would
eat away all the areas he hadn't painted with the resistant varnish. When the acid was washed
off, his lines painted in varnish would now be in relief, and ready for inking. Once printed, he then
hand painted the finished prince in watercolour or ink - or his wife, who was his assistant did.
Blake's wife Catherine, whose input was dismissed for so long, worked side by side with her husband
on all his printed works, and was Central to his printing and coloring processes.
In his prints longer letters from Blake's text joins up with tendrils or branches of trees
while other poems are woven amongst glorious colourful flowers, or fiery flowing forms.
Or obscured by belching fumes from industrial fires. Unsurprisingly then, the Poetry of his books was
the source of many of his most well-known visual images - including "The Ancient of Days".
Blake's great image "The Ancient of Days" served as the frontispiece for the long poem "Europe", which is one of
Blake's prophetic books. These were a series of longer poems in which Blake constructed his own cosmology of
gods and goddesses, and an epic mythological universe. For Blake it was necessary to
create his own belief system, so as not to be enslaved by somebody else's. Blake invented his
own vast and complicated mythology that he used to illustrate his prophecies. It was a fusion of
ideas, inspired by John Milton's "Paradise Lost", the visions of the Mystic Emanuel Swedenborg
and the German philosopher Jacob Böhm, mixing Christian philosophy and the grand poetry of
the King James Bible, with his own spiritual visions, and revolutionary political ideas.
Among the various Gods Blake created for his mythology, was Urizen, the figure we
see in "The Ancient of Days". Urizen is his best known and most frequently depicted
mythological figure. His name is a pun on "Your reason", and he is Blake's version
of the traditional judeo-christian patriarchal God. A bearded old man who
is a rule making Creator, who brings order to the world, but is also the god of restricted
reason, and the origin of political repression. "The first book of Urizen", was one of Blake's so-called
"Bibles of Hell" and was published in 1794. It is his version of The Genesis story. It cannot be
stressed enough, just how subversive, rewriting the Bible was in the 18th century
Blake also created a rebellious Spirit, called "Orc", the spirit of Revolt who is an antidote to Urizen,
A figure who strives to break down the rules and restrictions , which Urizen introduced into the world.
iI is orc who Blake has inspiring the American revolutionaries.
This Pantheon of Blakean spiritual heroes, populate his enormous and apocalyptic long poems.
And exist to expound, in the grandest terms, his philosophy and world view.
This print was very important to Blake, who spent a huge amount of time working and reworking it.
Experimenting with colours and tones, different dilutions of ink and watercolour paints. In fact,
over 30 years after he created it, Blake was hand colouring a version of it in his sick bed, in the
last hours before he died in 1827. "The Ancient of Days", was a originally printed in 1794, and gets its
name from The Book of Daniel. It was an image inspired in part by a passage from the Bible:
lt was also inspired by a vision Blake had of Urizen appearing to float above his
staircase in his South London home. "The Ancient of Days" can be seen as a direct attack on rationalism,
rules, and Dogma, with Urizen depicted in the act of creation, emerging from a formless void,
leaning out of a golden orb, and reaching out with his Compass to measure the world. It has a long
tradition in visual representations of Godlike figures as creators. We know Blake had this image
on display in his workshop, and often featured compasses in his work. Blake admired Michelangelo
greatly, and his debt to the Renaissance artist is apparent in this work and others. The heroic
musculature of the figures, the dramatic Twisted postures, the figure of the Creator bursting
forth from a floating nebulous form. Even the graphic Simplicity of the line and simplified
backgrounds, all Point towards Michelangelo. The body as metaphor is Central to Blake's engraved
and poetic images. Like Michelangelo, he often used impossible and contorted positions, to emphasise
meaning, and portrayed the body as simultaneously liberating and enslaving. It is significant
that in "The Ancient of Days", Blake shows Urizen hunched forward. This is part of a visual code
running through Blake's entire body of work. He presents figures in this posture again and
again, from early works like "Songs of Innocence and Experience", to his later prophetic books. It is his
way of visually signifying themes of restriction and control, the constraints of rationality, and the
oppressive influence of society's rule makers. Unlike these hunched figures, other gods or free-spirited
children, can be seen stood up or jumping, raising their arms - free from the contracting forces of
repression, fear, and bitterness. The giant compass appears to grow out of Urizen's fingers, as if he
is losing his Humanity - becoming a machine. He holds the mathematical instrument at a 90° angle,
pointing downwards towards the Earth, symbolising that he is the God who introduces order, reason,
and structure, in Blake's mythological world - and with these things introduces oppression, control,
and restriction. He is so concerned with order and reason, so limited to the physical task of
creating, that he has his back to (and so cannot see) the warmth and vitality of the universe behind him.
He is so focused on the darkness ahead,and tilting so far forward, that he almost looks as if he could fall into to the void
There is an obvious visual parallel between "The Ancient of Days" and Blake's earlier image "Newton".
With both holding compasses and both hunched over in that familiar
restrictive pose towards the floor. Blake shows the scientist sitting naked and
muscular, on a rocky outcrop apparently at the bottom of the ocean. The portrait bears little
resemblance to the scientist, but that is likely intentional as Blake didn't set out to create a
true likeness, but rather to portray an "idea" of Newton, and the science he represents.
The Deep consuming Darkness surrounding Newton, indicates his ignorance of the spiritual world and his
distance from the light of Truth. The Rock, which is covered in plants and other living organisms,
represents the creative world. The compass and the scroll, represent tools used by scientific
rationality to clip the wings of imagination. Blake resented the cold detachment of rational thinking,
and preferred to think of reality, not just as what you can see, touch, hear, or feel,
but also as something you can imagine, or believe. He said:
Newton's reduction of life to an empty system of rules and facts, is also what Urizen represents
in "The Ancient of Days". He is a symbol of oppressive systems like the Ten Commandments, or the cruel laws
which target working-class people. And he is also the scientist who tries to narrow our reality
with his limited ideas of what you can believe. The ideal of Romantics like Blake was: Liberty from tyranny in ALL forms.
On the 12th of April 1827 William Blake wrote to a friend:
Four months later to the day, William Blake died, and his friend George Richmond gives a
now famous account of Blake's passing, as a moment of joy and celebration for the poet.
Although he ended his days in Practical poverty, this inspiring man died as passionately as he had lived.
But sadly, he was not only largely unknown in his lifetime, he was also dismissed as a Madman after his death.
And he may have remained unknown, were it not for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who rediscovered him and promoted him to the public.
And the biography of Blake was published in 1863 to great acclaim. Since then, he has become one of
the most celebrated of all Romantic Poets, and not just as a poet, but as a unique mixed-media artist
and trailblazer. There are few artists who can exert such influence on their followers as Blake.
Perhaps because few artists had the passion and belief that Blake had.
In part two, we look at Blake's iconic poetry. You can find
it on my other channel "Great Books Explained". The link is in the comments.