During my recent trip to London, I visited the British Library. There’s a rather unusual sculpture in front of the Library – it’s contemporary, but inspired by 18th century painting. It reminded me about another such inspiration – the Art Deco sculpture in New York, influenced by the same 18th century artist. So who is this seminal person and why do people keep looking up to him? And people from all walks of life, from Aldous Huxley to Jim Morrison, do continue to be inspired by him.

He’s William Blake, one of the most intriguing, mysterious and complicated poets. He was also an accomplished artist and illustrated his own books. Many of his contemporaries considered him insane, as Blake regularly experienced spiritual visions, in which he communicated with his deceased brother, took advice and encouragement from angels and spirits, and saw various mythological figures. He was deeply religious, but not in the conventional way – he invented his own complex mythology and had some very radical views (for example, he was going to bring a second wife into the house). In addition to completely trusting his own visions, Blake did not deal well with authority at all – from challenging his teachers to participating in riots, to shocking religious views, to a physical fight with a soldier. Any kind of order, conventional rules, or even laws were taken by Blake as an imposition. Given these idiosyncrasies, his artwork can be seen in a different light.

For Blake, the compass was a symbol of mathematical reason, and more widely, of science, of laws of physics, of order, making it the imposition of materialistic views on the imagination and constraint of the spirituality. This hateful symbol appears in both paintings.

“Newton” by Eduardo Paolozzi (1995) after “Newton” by William Blake (1795).

British Library, London

In Blake’s painting, Newton appears as a young and muscular figure, so it’s easy to take him as a positive symbol. But in fact, Blake did not have a lot of respect for science – he wrote "Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death." He directly attacked Newton for having “a mechanistic and materialistic view of the universe which gave no room to the imagination.” Blake despised materialistic, rational views; conquering the chaos of the unknown world by means of reason and of science meant for Blake the reduction of the infinite to the finite. Look how simplistic Newton’s drawing is and how oblivious he is himself to the mysterious, colorful and rich surroundings. Newton’s appearance as a young and attractive man underscores his physicality, his materialism – this is not an admiration.

Paolozzi’s Newton is some kind of a cyborg, or superman – strong and powerful, with the eyes copied from Michelangelo’s David, and the body as a partially mechanical object, fixed with bolts at the joints. But it’s not a negative image – it’s not scary or threatening. Paolozzi saw this work as “an exciting union of two British geniuses”, as a connection between the arts and science, and between two great historical figures, despite their differences.

"Wisdom" by Lee Lawrie (1933) after “The Ancient of Days”, frontispiece to “Europe, a Prophecy” by William Blake (1794).

Rockefeller Center, NY

Blake’s second painting, an illustration to his prophetic poem, depicts Urizen, one of Blake’s mythical characters. Urizen personifies reason, logic, and law. For Blake, it is the end of freedom.

In Lee Lawrie’s work, Wisdom is considered the creative power of the universe, and biblical quote adds even more authority. To quote the sculptor himself, “[t]he program shows Wisdom thrusting aside the clouds of ignorance and interpreting for man the laws and cycles of the cosmic universe, thereby ruling all of human activity.” It is clearly a positive image.

So it appears that both sculptors rather misrepresented Blake’s characters. For Blake, rational, materialistic views were loathsome. He deeply hated the constraints of science, of reason, of logic. His spiritual visions told him so much more about the world, his imagination gave him infinite possibilities.

Blake’s contemporaries refused to take him seriously. And two hundred years later, artists, even when referencing his works, didn’t really listen to him either.

Here’s an interesting paradox, though. One of the most well-known quotes by Blake himself is: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite”. So the compasses, in this infinite range, really could be a symbol of either good or bad - depending on your perception - either of wisdom, guiding people through the chaos, or of a stifling and oppressing force, hostile to imagination and creativity. In this small sample of four artworks, both originals and the later interpretations appear on the opposite sides of this range, and thus the modern artists reinforce Blake’s ideas by contradicting him.