Jan 85 min read

WILLIAM BLAKE, MADMAN OR GENIUS - impressions about art

Updated: Sep 14

December 30, 2023

text from the book: TIME OF CHANGES

author: Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk

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William Blake, Madman or Genius - TIME OF CHANGES - Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk

A 20th-century Canadian literary critic, Herman Northrop Frye, wrote: Read Blake or go to hell, that's my message to the modern world. Who was, or maybe who is William Blake?

When he was alive, he was called a madman and a fantasist. His vision of the world was rejected, art was criticized, ridiculed, and his views were called crazy. Now, 200 years later, they call him a visionary and a mystic. The number of fans of his work is still growing.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.

– William Blake

William Blake, a sharp, intelligent observer of reality, torn between craft and art. A thinker, philosopher and the one who was able to look into people's hearts and minds. To touch the soul and stir in the abyss of human consciousness. The one who was able to cross the boundaries of the material and spiritual world. The one who could see behind the veil of oblivion of the 3-dimensional box of the Matrix world. A world of people attached to matter, who consider themselves to be more intelligent, wiser and better than anyone who is not within the frame of, imposed from above, binding narratives and beliefs.

After all, freedom is a state of mind. Freedom cannot be enclosed in any frame. And William Blake evidently escaped the framework of the image and mind of the era in which he lived. He stepped outside the frame and saw an image of divine infinity. Everything is everything and nothing at the same time. Because everything is One. Everything is a thought in the mind of the Creator.

One thought fills the immensity. – William Blake

As an independent-minded artist, Blake did not want and perhaps could not submit to the power of frames, fashion and “Enlightenment” tastes, which knew better than he did what and how he should paint. And he painted in his own way. He painted the world he saw. A world where matter, spirituality, dream, reality and vision interpenetrate. However, in the world in which he lived, his paintings and the techniques he used were seen by many as too innovative and by others as too primitive and outdated. He was expected to fit into the box of the framework of the epoch that was called the Enlightenment.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. – William Blake

When he did falll into the trance of writing poetry, his wife Catherine called it “singing fits.” What an apt term. After all, that's how it is. This is what a poet experiences when his poetry flows from the heart. We call it the Muse who sings in the upper world. And the Poet enters this world in a trance of rapture and brings the song of the Muse to this world. Poetry is the song of the soul. Poetry is a message. Poetry is the inspired words of a message from another dimension, another time-space, which is so difficult to understand, for the mind closed in the frames of narrow beliefs of the material and materialistic world. Poetry is a gift from the world of Angels, to the world of people.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom; no clock can measure. - William Blake

So, who is William Blake? When you look at his paintings, you see in them a world of visions and dreams put together from the brushes of many painters. If you didn't know who the author is, you would easily consider these paintings to be the art of the 21st century. When you read his poetry, you feel the words of the poems penetrate your soul and go to your heart. These are timeless and very contemporary words at the same time.

The artist, ridiculed 200 years ago, is now called a genius who surpassed and overtook the times in which he lived. Underestimated and misunderstood by the people of the epoch grandiloquently called the Enlightenment. Epoch of standardization, uniformity and squeezing everything into the narrow framework of beliefs called the mind. An epoch that rejects the aspect of the soul and what is invisible to the eye.

He's a Blockhead who wants a proof of what he can't Percieve,

And he's a Fool who tries to make such a Blockhead believe. – William Blake

William Blake is a story about a man from our modern world who has the courage to march against the current, in a different direction than the echoing, mindless crowd. A story about a man who sees differently, lives differently and has the courage to think and say something different than the narrative imposed by the media. A story about a man who not only threw off his mask, but also never accepted it.

The world doesn't like “a different one.” It easily affixes the emblem with the inscription “misfit” or “madman.” But history continues to prove that “madmen” are the ones changing this world and pushing it forward. "Madness" seems to be a constant feature of great people and geniuses, those who reject the only right vision of the world and have the courage to see the world differently. They ask questions and look for answers.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time. – William Blake

Many of Blake's contemporaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who experienced fame during their lifetime and formed a group of celebrities of the time, have faded into oblivion, just as their art has faded into oblivion. Blake is still alive, and his art has stood the test of time. And although rejected, ridiculed and, one could say, “unliked” by his contemporaries, William Blake still fascinates subsequent generations, who rediscover him.

Let's not be afraid to be mad. Let's not be afraid to go against the grain. Let's not be afraid to see the world invisible to the eye. Let us have the courage to see the world of the soul.