Thursday, October 8, 2009

William Blake and Deep Space

I am currently reading Terryl Givens's latest book When Souls Had Wings which is an excellent history and examination of the concept of the pre-mortal existence. The artwork on the cover is from William Blake's The Third Temptation.
I couldn't help but notice that it bears a striking resemblance to this Hubble Telescope photograph of the Eagle Nebula called the Pillars of Creation.
Intrigued by this, I've combined a few more of Blake's creations with images from deep space.
The similarities can probably be explained by coincidence and the ephemeral and luminous quality of Blake's art. But I can't help but wonder if Blake really did see these images in vision as he claimed. Or perhaps he just had really good long distance eyesight.

2 comments:

Karen said...

Intriguing food for thought. Did you see Jerry Johnston's article on "Rethinking Truths", Deseret News Sat. Oct. 10th? Quotes the Chinese Provereb " The foolish person will reject what he sees, but never what he thinks. The wise person will reject what he thinks, but never what he sees." He is referring to the discovery of the 4.4 million yr old Ardi skeleton recently found that reputes humans from descending from apes.

Nathan said...

Holy crap, that's uncanny!