Monday, 24 December 2012

Blake versus Newton

For the first time I see this engraving less as a celebration, more as a satire, on the great scientist, philosopher, and theologian.

Even in this brightly coloured print (and there are darker versions) the way Newton focuses on his own abstraction, while unaware of the depths and rock around him, may be seen as a Blakeian critique of what we might now call rationalism or determinism.

I've blogged before abut Vaughan Williams' setting of Walt Whitman's poem "Toward the Unknown Region". It's on the stereo now, how appropriate!