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Description
This powerful depiction of Blake's wrathful, law-giving character Urizen is perhaps his best-known image. Its composition draws on medieval representations of God creating the universe using the tools of an architect. Here, the snowy-haired figure kneels down from the sphere of Heaven and attempts to circumscribe the infinity of creation with a golden compass. The plate, designed as the frontispiece to the prophetic book Europe, was also issued as a separate print that later acquired the traditional but inaccurate title The Ancient of Days. It recalls Blake's pithy epigram:
To God—
If you have formed a Circle to go into
Go into it yourself & see how you would do
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Description