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William Blake's Ancient of Days: Measuring the Universe
William Blake created The Ancient of Days in 1794 as a relief etching for his illuminated book Europe, a Prophecy. The print depicts Urizen, a mythological figure representing reason, measuring the material universe with a compass out of dark space. The Vision at Lambeth William Blake executed The Ancient of Days in 1794 as a relief etching coloured by hand with watercolour. Measuring 23.3 by 16.8 centimetres, the original print resides in the British Museum in London. It functions as the frontispiece to Blake's poem Europe, a Prophecy. The composition shows an old man with white hair reaching down from a glowing yellow orb to measure the dark void below with a wide compass. This act of measuring the universe directly addresses the title's central subject. Blake recorded that he saw this figure in a vivid vision that hovered over his head at the top of a staircase while he was living in Lambeth. The motif of a divine figure measuring the cosmos connects to a specific biblical source. In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom describes the creation of the world, noting the moment when the Lord set a compass upon the face of the deep. Compasses symbolising the act of creation had appeared in medieval manuscripts and early Bibles. Blake integrated these historical motifs while drawing visual inspiration from the muscular forms of Michelangelo. However, Blake altered these traditional artistic references to fit his own complex personal mythology. Urizen and the Four Zoas Although 'The Ancient of Days' is an Aramaic name for God, Blake did not intend to depict a benevolent biblical creator. The artist was a religious man who disagreed with established Church teachings and despised the official artistic standards of the academies. The figure in the print is Urizen, a character created by Blake to represent a bad demiurgic force. In Blake's personal mythology, Urizen is the creator of the material world. Because Blake viewed the physical world as inherently bad, he considered its creator to be an evil spirit rather than a merciful deity. Urizen forms part of Blake's concept of the four Zoas, which represent distinct agencies of human selfhood and experience. In this framework, Tharmas represents the physical body, Luvah represents human passion, Urthona represents the creative imagination, and Urizen represents cold reason. Blake believed that balance was necessary among all four agencies. When reason dominates, Urizen takes control, resulting in a state that is territorial and paranoid. In his poetry, Blake described Urizen dividing and measuring space in ninefold darkness, unseen and unknown. The print captures the nightmare character of Urizen's dominion over the physical realm. The compass reaches into the blackness like a flash of lightning on a dark and stormy night. Under Urizen's rule, the human body and its senses become restricted, emotional passions are inhibited, and the creative imagination is impoverished. Blake portrayed this act of measurement as an act of limitation that trapped humanity within material boundaries rather than a divine blessing. The Ancient of Days (Blake, Research Issues). Public domain; source: Wikimedia Commons. Relief Etching and Artistic Training Blake produced The Ancient of Days using a specialised process known as relief etching, sometimes referred to as a metal cut. He began developing illuminated books using this technique in 1788. Following the death of his younger brother Robert, Blake stated that Robert's spirit visited him in a vision to reveal a secret method for printing both poetry and design on a single metal plate. Blake frequently combined relief etching with tempera, woodcut, monotype, and watercolour, while avoiding oil paints because he felt oils lacked necessary line clarity. Blake's technical skill rested on years of formal training in London. Born in Golden Square as the son of a businessman, he attended a drawing school in Covent Garden at age ten. At fourteen, he began a seven-year apprenticeship under James Basire, an engraver for the London Society of Antiquaries. In August 1779, Blake was admitted to the Royal Academy, where he learned to draw from antique casts, live models, and corpses. However, his radical opinions regarding art frequently clashed with the tutors at the Academy. Opposing Newtonian Science Blake strongly opposed Sir Isaac Newton and the rationalist scientific philosophy of his era. He believed that the Age of Reason produced a restricted worldview that reduced human experience to mathematical calculation. By showing Urizen using giant calipers to measure off space, Blake criticised the Newtonian conception of reality. The image contrasts the infinite nature of spiritual vision against the rigid boundaries of scientific measurement. In executing his designs, Blake refused to draw directly from physical life, choosing to rely entirely on his inner eye. He consciously revolted against the accepted standards of academic representation, paying little attention to conventional rules of anatomy or perspective. Like medieval artists before him, Blake considered the spiritual significance of his inner visions to be far more important than mere technical correctness. This unconventional approach led many of his contemporaries to view his artworks with confusion or hostility. Commercial Hardship and Isolation Blake struggled financially throughout his adult life, paying his way primarily through commercial engravings for booksellers such as Joseph Johnson. In 1784, Blake opened a print shop, but the business failed within two years, forcing him back into freelance work for Johnson. Following the French Revolution in 1789, Blake's art and poetry grew increasingly radical. In 1800, the writer William Hayley invited Blake to live on his estate in Sussex. Although initially delighted by the countryside, Blake grew tired of trivial commissions from local society and returned to London in 1803. Success remained elusive after his return to London. In 1809, Blake staged a private exhibition of his paintings in his brother's hosiery shop, but the show was mocked, and one reviewer described Blake as an unfortunate lunatic. By 1810, he was impoverished and alienated from many friends and patrons. Only a few contemporaries recognised his artistic talent and purchased his relief etchings, saving him from total starvation. As Blake turned sixty, younger artists finally began to admire his work, long after he completed his illustration of Urizen measuring the universe.
Loki: Ransom, Theft and Escape
Loki kills Ótr, an otter who is secretly Hreidmar’s son, forcing the gods to pay ransom with a stolen hoard. Andvari warns that the gold and ring will cause death and conflict, and the curse soon turns Hreidmar’s sons against their father and each other. Loki and the Otter’s Ransom Loki struck an otter on the head with a stone and killed it as it sat on a riverbank, eating a salmon with its eyes closed. Odin, Hoenir and Loki carried the otter and salmon with them. They reached a byre and asked its owner, Hreidmar, for lodging for the night. Hreidmar was powerful and skilled in the black arts. When he saw the catch, he seized the three Æsir and demanded payment for the otter, who was his son Ótr. They had to fill the otterskin with gold and cover its outside with red gold. Loki borrowed Ran’s net and went to Andvara-falls. He cast the net in front of a pike, then jumped into it. The fish said that he was Andvari and that Oin had been his father. Loki demanded treasure as the price of his life. Andvari led him to the rock where he kept his gold and handed over the entire hoard. He had hidden one small ring in his hand. Loki saw it and demanded that as well. Andvari begged to keep it because it would let him increase his wealth again, but Loki took it. Andvari declared that the ring and the gold would bring death to two brothers and strife between eight princes. He said the treasure would be the bane of everyone who possessed it. Loki welcomed this and promised to ensure that the curse reached the person who received the hoard. He returned to Hreidmar and gave him the gold as ransom for Ótr. Hreidmar accepted it, and the curse became attached to the treasure. Hreidmar’s sons, Fafner and Regin, demanded their shares as payment for their brother. Hreidmar refused. The brothers agreed to kill their father for the gold. After Hreidmar’s death, Regin demanded half the hoard from Fafner. Fafner refused. He said that he had killed their father to obtain it, then ordered Regin to leave or suffer the same fate. The gold had brought death within the family, as Andvari had foretold. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Loki Steals Brísingamen Loki entered Freyja’s locked room while she slept in Sessrumnir. The door was closed at the top and bottom, and its keyhole was too narrow for him to use. He searched the walls and found a tiny opening beneath the roof, at the highest point of a gable. He changed into a fly and slipped through it. Freyja lay on her back, with the clasp of Brísingamen beneath her neck. Loki could not reach it. He changed into a flea and bit her cheek. Freyja groaned and turned on her side. Loki resumed his own form, opened the clasp and took the necklace. He left through the door because he no longer needed to conceal himself. When Freyja awoke, her hand found no necklace at her throat. Heimdall pursued Loki, who had changed into a seal. The necklace lay on a rock in the sea called Vágasker, or Singasteinn. Loki’s disguise caused no suspicion because a seal might seek a resting place there. Heimdall took the same form and fought him on the rock. Loki had to withdraw, and Heimdall recovered Brísingamen. One account connects the theft with the necklace’s earlier history. Four dwarfs, Alfrig, Dvalin, Berling and Grer, made the ornament. Freyja saw it in their smithy and obtained it under conditions that conflicted with the fidelity she owed Odin. Loki learned what had happened and told Odin, who ordered him to take the necklace. Another account gives no such motive. In that version, Loki entered Freyja’s room by using his transformations. Loki Steals Brísingamen. Original MythSource illustration created for this story; not a historical artwork. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland; Treasury of Norse Mythology. Loki Escapes as a Salmon After Baldr’s death, Loki fled from the gods and hid in the form of a salmon at the waterfall of Franangr. He built a house with four doors so that he could watch for anyone approaching. He spent his days in the waterfall, moving through the spray and fearing discovery. While he brooded, Loki made a fishing net. He considered how a salmon might escape such a trap. It could swim beneath the net, pass between stones or leap over it. When he saw the gods coming up the mountainside, he threw the net onto the fire. The Æsir found its ashes and wondered why Loki had made and destroyed a net just as they arrived. Kvasir reasoned that Loki had burned it so they could not use it to catch him. Thor understood that Loki must be hiding as a fish in the deep pool below the waterfall. The gods made a net like Loki’s and dragged it through the pool. Loki swam beneath it and slipped between two flat stones. The net passed over him. Thor had felt something push against it, so Kvasir ordered the gods to try again. This time they tied heavy stones to the lower edge, preventing anything from swimming underneath. Loki could not change into another form, and the weighted net left him fewer ways to escape. The Æsir dragged the net upstream towards the waterfall while Loki swam ahead of it towards the sea. He feared the deep water and turned back. He leaped over the net and returned upstream. The gods began again, with two groups holding the ends and Thor wading in the centre. Loki swam towards the sea once more, then turned and leaped over the net. Thor caught him in mid-air and held him fast. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources.
A Burial at Ornans: Courbet Makes Ordinary Life Monumental
Gustave Courbet transformed nineteenth-century French painting by depicting a small-town funeral on a canvas over six metres wide. By granting ordinary provincial citizens the monumental scale reserved for history painting, Courbet redefined the scope of artistic subjects. Courbet and the Return to Ornans Gustave Courbet was born in 1819 in Ornans, a provincial town near Besançon and the Swiss border. His father, a former peasant, was a prosperous landowner and vintner. Courbet moved to Paris in 1839 to study painting. By the late 1840s, he became a prominent figure in the bohemian cafés of the Left Bank. There he met writer Charles Baudelaire, socialist journalist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and art critic Champfleury. Under Proudhon's influence, Courbet adopted socialist views, while Champfleury directed his attention toward Realism. Champfleury collected popular prints, broadsides, and children's art, urging Courbet to paint the rural life of his home region. In the autumn of 1849, Courbet returned to Ornans to paint A Burial at Ornans. He worked in his family attic, inside a small studio barely wider than the canvas itself. The completed oil painting measures approximately ten feet high by twenty-two feet wide, extending over six metres in length. Rather than painting classical legends or historical battles, Courbet selected a local, everyday event. He rendered every figure at life-size scale, applying the monumental format of traditional academic history painting to ordinary provincial citizens who would otherwise leave no official record in history. The Structure of the Provincial Ceremony The painting portrays a funeral gathering in a bleak landscape featuring overcast skies, barren cliffs, and the Roche du Mont. Over fifty local residents attended the service and posed for Courbet. The artist arranged forty-six identified citizens across the canvas in a wavering horizontal line, viewing them at eye level. This wall of figures blocks deep perspective, creating a simple composition. In the centre foreground, an open grave pit cuts directly into the viewer's space, accompanied by a skull that marks human mortality. Courbet grouped his subjects strictly according to local social roles and gender. On the left, four pallbearers in wide-brimmed hats carry the coffin, turning their heads away from the smell of decay. Beside them stand a verger carrying a cross, two servers, and the priest Bonnet reading the Prayer for the Dead. Two scarlet-clad beadles follow: the long-nosed shoemaker Clément and the wine-grower Muselier. A gravedigger kneels in shirt sleeves near the pit. To the right stand local patricians, including Courbet's father Régis, the plump mayor, and deputy Justice of the Peace Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Separated from the men, the local women complete the gathering on the right side of the canvas. Among them are Courbet's sisters: Juliette crying into a handkerchief, Zoé covering her face, and Zélie lost in thought. On the far right edge, Courbet's mother holds a small child by the hand. Two veterans of the 1793 revolution stand near the grave in Jacobin attire. On the far left edge stands Courbet's grandfather, Jean-Antoine Oudot, a republican veteran who died in 1848. Though Oudot's death may have prompted the work, Courbet depicted him alive as a witness to his own funeral. Enterrement à Ornans (détail de deux femmes). Public domain; source: Wikimedia Commons. Technique and Artistic Departure Courbet abandoned the idealised formulas of academic art and traditional history painting. He omitted Baroque dramatic effects, emotional theatricality, and classical pyramidal compositions such as those used in Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe. Instead, he used a democratic compositional structure without a central heroic figure. Every element carries equal weight, making a village dog in the foreground as prominent as the mayor or priest. Courbet derived his simple arrangement from popular art forms, including song sheets, broadsides, and almanacs. The painting relies on a restrained palette dominated by black, white, and dirty grays, fractured by the bright red robes of the beadles. Courbet applied pigment using a palette knife to quickly place and unify large daubs of paint across the surface. This technique created a roughly wrought texture that departed from traditional academic illusionism. Traditional contemporaries viewed these direct methods as crude and unrefined, describing Courbet as a primitive who committed brutalities against established technique. Courbet maintained that painting is a concrete art that must deal only with real, existing things visible on the retina. Salon Reception and Scandal When exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850-51, A Burial at Ornans caused immediate outrage among traditional viewers and critics. The public objected to the coarse depiction of provincial figures. Courbet documented unkempt hair, bulbous noses, grotesquely wrinkled faces, and the red faces of the beadles without idealisation. Critics accused him of pursuing a cult of ugliness and producing an undignified, godless caricature. The core of the controversy was Courbet's decision to treat a village genre scene with the monumental scale reserved for state events and heroic narratives. The painting also carried political implications under the Second Republic. Critics viewed the unvarnished depiction of the provincial bourgeoisie as a political threat, recognizing the voting power of rural populations. Conservative reviewers labelled the work as overly socialist. Courbet defended his approach in 1851, stating that he was a Realist because Realist meant a sincere lover of the honest truth. He rejected academic depictions of invisible subjects, famously noting that he had never seen angels and would only paint one if shown an angel. The Pavilion of Realism In 1855, the academic jury for the Exposition Universelle rejected two paintings submitted by Courbet: A Burial at Ornans and The Stone Breakers. The jury deemed the works too large and politically coarse. In response, Courbet withdrew all his accepted works and constructed a private exhibition building outside the official grounds. Calling his space the Pavilion of Realism, Courbet staged the first independent one-man exhibition in art history. Inside, he presented his works alongside a written manifesto defining his philosophy of Realism. Courbet's rejection of academic theatricality influenced younger artists, including future Impressionists like Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir, who observed his bold palette and heavy pigment application. In 1857, the art critic Champfleury defended A Burial at Ornans, writing that while it represents a small-town funeral, it reproduces the funerals of all small towns. By capturing the unadorned realities of daily existence in rural France, Courbet established a new path for modern painting.