Can we take some time to show some love for the man like William Blake?

[captain beeheart]

"I must create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's"

Is it an oxymoron to try and live by this creed?

This site is brilliant - they've got high quality scans of tons of his work: http://www.blakearchive.org.uk/main.html

http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/blake/blake.gif

[captain beeheart]

http://www.abm-enterprises.net/daughters.jpg

[captain beeheart]

Fuck man, if I had a spare mil or several, I'd buy me an illuminated book like a shot.

[Kahimi]

I'm learning a lot about his work via a book I got for Christmas called "The Hermetic Museum." Now I'm very interested in learning more. There are cheap versions of some of his works, from Dover I think, but of course they aren't that big.

[acid_squid]

Huh?
Who said that?
Nobodaddy

[captain beeheart]

Originally posted by Kahimi
I'm learning a lot about his work via a book I got for Christmas called "The Hermetic Museum." Now I'm very interested in learning more. There are cheap versions of some of his works, from Dover I think, but of course they aren't that big.

The originals weren't either, though.

Going chronologically is probably best - maybe skip the juvenalia, check out Songs Of Innocence And Experience, then The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell, then on to the mindfuck of the Prophetic Books.

[yamchild]

Originally posted by captain beeheart

Going chronologically is probably best - maybe skip the juvenalia, check out Songs Of Innocence And Experience, then The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell, then on to the mindfuck of the Prophetic Books.

This is a good suggestion. It's the order I went in (just finished the prophetic books).

But I must admit I was floundering a bit in Blake's personalized mythology. I mean I can see Urizen as the Demiurge, the Eternals as the true God prior to the schism of material/spititual and male/female. But what of Los? How is Los a separate entity from Urizen? And Blake was pitting the revolutionary spirit of France and America (embodied by Orc) against the rational materialism represented by Urizen. It seems to me that the American and French (in its early stages) Revolutions are more the outgrowth of Enlightenment-era rationalism rather than the opposition of it...

:confused:

[shammy718]

i've always liked the spatial qualities of his artwork.

[Whisper]

the tyger is my favorite:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night.
What Immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?


And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart begin to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?


What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?


Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
What Immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

[Asharak]

Do you think he was a better artist or a better poet? I appreciate his poetry, but his paintings were/are amazing.

[Asharak]

http://www.fantasyarts.net/blake-red-dragon.htm

[FDM]

^ word.

he did a study of the behemoth and the leviathan that i really like

from what i remember, a lot of his work was done on very unstable mediums that haven't really stood the test of time.

like painting on tissue paper and stuff.