Interpretation William Blakes Art - Essay Example

Interpretation of William Blake’s Art Insert Insert s Interpretation William Blake’s Art William Blake painted the art piece. It looks like a hideous animal at first glance. However, there are so many details involved that it keeps a viewer in wonder. The painting does not look like a human being because of its size. One would think that it is a beast. However, that will be so only if one rushed his or her eyes away from the painting. When one ponders over it, he or she will notice that the creature has features that can qualify it as human. First and foremost, it is covered in skin. It does not have hair or fur like one would expect of a beast, but skin, just like people. Another striking element that makes the painting that of human is its facial traits (Blake). The creature has hair that seems well kempt. Its eyes, nose, and mouth, are in positions similar to that of man. Its limbs suggest that it walks on legs because his upper arms look like ape hands. It uses them, in the same way, a person would. The creature cannot be an animal, but it can also not be a 21st-century human being. It gives the feel of the Neanderthal age; the times when people lived in cages. Its strong body explains its environment. It has to be so to survive in the wild. The masculine limbs served to protect it. It helped it fend for meals. Those were times when there were little tools to help someone get by. Therefore, one would conclude that the painter, from his imagination or information given by historians, was trying to depict the human of the ancient world. As one admires the painter’s creativity, other things come to mind. For instance, what place is the creature? The strokes of brush above the creature give the feeling that it is on open air (Blake). The wavy patterns seem like wind, the wind created by the creature’s movement who seem to be in a lot of distress. It also seems as though he is inside of a cage because the interior is usually so dark that one can only view the area in question. The rest of the place disappears in the background. This argument can be supported by the fact that the waves fades away from the creature but remain centralized around it, almost engulfing it; creating a base that the creature seem to have kneeled. The color of the animal appears to be an illusion rather than what the creature is imagined to be. It is as though it is meant to emphasize on the pain the creature is feeling rather than imply that it is red in color. The animal seems to be in so much pain that it triggers feelings of sympathy to its viewers (Blake). That again captures the attention of the observer. It makes one wonder the cause of all the turmoil and what one can do to help. The artist can make his viewers contemplate on the sufferings of the creature. They are forced to treat it as something with an inherent value as opposed to disregarding it as a filthy monster. The painting makes one realize the nature of humans; that they can relate to the agony of others, despite of how different they look. The picture is the ninth plate of the Book of Urizen drawn by William Blake. The book goes back to the 18th century. It gives a different angle on the creation story recorded in the book of Genesis (Bentley, 2003). The creature is an immortal being that represents humans. He came into existence when Urizen, a form of god, fell into a deep sleep. His purpose was to take care of Urizen. He was Urizen’s prophet who served to protect him from his very self. Urizen existed before creation with other eternal beings. However, he chose to alienate himself from his kind because he thought of himself as holy. He represents the satanic forces. His alienation was his fall and, as a result, he was condemned by the rest of the immortals, to create beings with a sinful nature. Urizen wanted to create a universe that is pure, free from the desire to do as one pleases. He established rules that would regulate behaviors, similar to those given by Moses in the Old Testament books of the Bible. However, his efforts were destroyed by curse imposed on his creation (Bentley, 2003). The destruction of his world, marked with rules that ended the beauty of imagination, caused him to curse his children. His frustrations sent him into a deep sleep that resulted in the appearance of Los, the creature on the illustration. The two are at antagonizing ends. Urizen can be the death of Los and vice versa. The two cannot co-exist. That is, their stands cannot co-exist. Urizen stands for laws and regulations that eventually spin a web of religious dogma. Los is the divine nature of imagination. He finally created the human beings. Los was in agony in the picture, because of the birth of Urizen, or perhaps the awakening of the latter (Blake). The story is a series, which can get complicated for readers. In his times, Blake’s art was dismissed as lacking sense. Perhaps what he is trying to communicate in his stories is the lack of imagination that can cause futility in the lives of people. Los, who creates life, fell from his eternal position because he disregarded his imagination (Bentley, 2003). He, the author is trying to represent two opposing forces. One is stuck in high moral standards, which does not give room to the real meaning of life. It turns people into machines that cannot think out of the system. It sets high consequences on those who break free from its hold, which ultimately destroys rather than preserve. On the other hand, imagination gives life meaning. It gives people the chance to create, even though it is through trial and error. It perpetuates existence, especially since human beings are not eternal. It gives them the opportunity to build something that can outlive them, to bring joy to the people left. It enriches their lives through the happiness accompanied by not being contained in a box. People deserve to feel the goodness of life. They deserve to hope for the best. They are entitled to be live without the fear of the unknown. It is the only way they can experience the fullness of life, they can discover their purpose, they can become more than what they initially were. They can reproduce and live a mark in a world they were created to leave behind. Los is a mystical being, an abstract of humans. In my analysis, I thought of him as a person from the Neanderthal age. His giant appearance added to my assumptions. Fallen angels are often represented as a giant who dwells among mortal beings. He seems to be in pain, pain that begged for once pity rather than relief (Blake). As much as he seemed a dangerous creature, given his enormous self, the distress written on his face is saddening, as though he did not deserve it. The anguish was because of the birth of Urizen. My evaluation differs in that I thought that Los was human rather than a mystical creature. The wavy drawings surrounding Los are a part of him. They seem like flames or a powerful feature that distinguishes him from the mortal. I immediately went to an ancient being because I am more familiar with apes than I am with mythical creatures. The artist communicates a deeper message in his book (Bentley, 2003). One can grasp the passion he has for his work just by a single picture. His endeavors were not appreciated in his time. However, it holds a greater meaning now when people are at liberty to go away from the conventional. His work brings meaning to art, especially at such times where artists are taking more action in expressing their feelings rather than producing virtual work of objects. His work can be appreciated at greater heights than it was during his time. It tells a lot on how art has grown. To some extent, his fictional myth about imagination is coming to life (Bentley, 2003). References Bentley, G. E. (2003). The Stranger From Paradise. New Haven: Yale University Press. Blake, W. Plate 9 from The Book of Urizen. Recent Acquisitions. Artchive Gallery, http://artchive.com/artchive/B/blake/blake_urizen_9.jpg.html. Read More