William Blake

William Blake, poet, artist, visionary, Mystic, deranged madman, eccentric lunatic, Blake has been described as all these things. The breadth and scope of Blake’s work both as an artist, poet and visionary thinker is immense, in his own lifetime the scale of his creative output was mindblowingly vast. 

However many have struggled to make sense of Blake’s complex world, a world constructed from his own unique mythology, leading some to dismiss him as a fascinating nutcase whose works can be enjoyed for their uniqueness, but whose philosophical ideas amount to the incomprehensible rantings of a deranged mind. To add to this Blakes ideas shifted and changed throughout his life, and sometimes contained contradictions, leading to further confusion.

However, after reading works by writers such as Peter Ackroyd and John Higgs, I believe it is possible to make sense of Blakes fascinating world view, which is in many ways an incredibly life affirming one, and one that can genuinely enrich our 21st century ideas about creativity, politics, and even neuroscience and the mind.

Blake was born in London in 1757. From an early age he had visions, the first was when as a child he saw God putting his face to the window, which sent the young Blake running away screaming in terror. Later on, during one of his many youthful walks out of London into what was then still the countryside, Blake famously saw angels on Peckham rye. He describes it in the following words

‘A tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings, bespangling every bough like stars’

Photos by Tom Plender