MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Wild Foxes, Hokum, I’ve Seen All I Need to See, and Ada: My Mother the Architect
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God’s other Englishman
SYLVIA HIKINS revisits the visionary world of Blake in a handsome book that sets him alongside his European contemporaries
NATIONALISM AND RACISM: (Left) Distress of the Fatherland (Not des Vaterlandes), Philipp Otto Runge, 1809; (Middle) Albion and the Fates, William Blake, 1804-1820; (Right) Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave, William Blake, 1793
[Hamburger Kunsthalle/Private Collection/British Museum]
JAMES WALSH revels in a miscellany of beautifully observed characters, ranging from the parodic to the frankly batshit
MALC McGOOKIN appreciates a graphic novel that records the history of the legendary peace camp and surveys the state of the right to protest in contemporary Britain
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a fascinating, revealing, superbly acted evening of theatre
New releases from Otherlands Trio, Isabelle Bodenseh, Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet
STEVEN ANDREW praises a beautifully written and enjoyable read
William Blake’s Universe
David Birdman and Esther Chadwick
Philip Wilson, £35
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) is possibly best known as the creator of England’s unofficial national anthem. When I was a kid, my mother used to take me with her to the local Co-op Women’s Guild, and at the start of every meeting we would heartily sing “Jerusalem.”
England’s green and pleasant land was written in the context of a turbulent age of political upheaval where the American, French, and Haitian revolutions combined with the growth of modern capitalism. Unsurprisingly, both dissenting and visionary art flourished across Europe.
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