Urizen
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In the mythology of William Blake, Urizen is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain t
Blake's watercoloured etching The Ancient of Days
Urizen from the front page of Copy G (c. 1818) of The Book of Urizen currently held by the Library of Congress (detail)
Urizen with his net – The Book of Urizen, copy G, object 27 c.1818 (detail)
Urizen striding through a darkened space. The William Blake Archive identifies the image as describing "the episode in which "Urizen explor'd his dens / Mountain, moor, & wilderness, / With a globe of fire lighting his / journey" (The First Book of Urizen plate 22, Erdman page 81)." This illustration comes from Blake's "Small Book of Designs", one of his illuminated art books, that wasn't printed in mass (though some images are comparable to those in other works). This illustration is object 7 and plate 23 of "
Albion (Blake)
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In the mythology of William Blake, Albion is the primeval man whose fall and division results in the Four Zoas: Urizen, Tharmas, Luvah/Orc and Urthona/Los. The name derives from the ancient and mythol
Urizen
…with him representing reason and Los, his opposition, representing imagination. In Blake's reworking of his mythic system, Urizen is one of the four Zoas that result from the division of the primordial man, Albion, and he continues to represent reason. He has an Emanation, or paired female equivalent…
Blake's image of Albion from his A Large Book of Designs
12 Daughters of Albion; in front Gwendolen (left) and Cambel (right). Jerusalem? Plate 81 (detail)