Featured Artist born on the 28^th, the day of the iconoclast- William Blake

“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.” (Words uttered by Los in Blake’s Jerusalem: The Emanation  of the Giant Albion) English artist William Blake  is considered to be one of the most original and inspired painters/ writers who ever lived. As a poet, the lines he is most remembered for are these from Auguries of Innocence

“To see the world in a grain of sand, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand.”

A true iconoclast, he marched to the best of his own visions. He was at odds with conventions, especially those of established religions and of the society in which he lived.   Pictured left is one of his more famous paintings, “of Days”, which depicts his vision of God and the creation.  When asked to make prints of the life of slaves, he chose images that were purposefully designed to shock people in order to let them know how brutal slavery was.

William Blake’s etching/watercolour “Ancient of Days” (1794)

“A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs” (1796)           William Blake          ”Flagellation of a Female Samboo Slave in a Gallow” (1796)