Visual Arts, Comics, and Graphic Novels
Blake was particularly influential on the young generation of early twentieth-century English landscape painters, such as Paul Nash and Dora Carrington. Abstract painter Ronnie Landfield dedicated a painting to Blake in the late 1960s.
Blake is often cited as an inspiration in comic literature. Alan Moore cites Blake's work in V for Vendetta (1982-5) and Watchmen (1986-7). As an apparent homage to Blake's importance in Moore's work, a framed copy of Blake's watercolor "Elohim Creating Adam" can be seen when Evey first explores V's hideout in the film version of V for Vendetta. William Blake also becomes an important figure in Moore's later work, and is a featured character in From Hell (1991–98) and Angel Passage (2001). In From Hell, Blake appears as a mystical and occultic foil to William Gull's aristocratic plot to murder the prostitutes of Whitechapel in London. Gull appears to Blake in two visions over the course of Moore's comic, and becomes the inspiration for "The Ghost of a Flea." Angel Passage was performed at the 2001 Tate Gallery exhibition of Blake accompanied with art by John Coultart.
Grant Morrison, R. Crumb, and J. M. DeMatteis have all cited Blake as one of their major inspirations. Comic designer William Blake Everett claims to be descended from Blake. Blake's Urizen appears in an early issue of Morrison's Invisibles, as well as Todd McFarlane's occult superhero comic Spawn. Garth Ennis also cites Blake's work in the Punisher MAX one-shot titled "The Tyger."
Nancy Willard's book of poetry A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1982. The book combines verse with large gouache illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen which are whimsical and iconic, making great use of the architecture of Blake's England.
Blake has been quoted in comic strips as well. In a weekday strip of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin recites a line from Blake's "The Tyger", while viewing a sleeping Hobbes (a tiger), lightheartedly alluding to the lines "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright..." Calvin's reaction to the poem is a confused one, however, as he assumes Blake was literally writing about an immolated tiger.
Read more about this topic: William Blake In Popular Culture
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