Isaac Newton
by BLAKE, William, Copper engraving with pen and ink and watercolour, 460 x 600 mm
Blake sought to exemplify the deeper significance of his philosophical thought in the tension between the immediate realism of his image and fantastic symbolism.
Newton, man naked and created out of chaos, appears to be breaking through the chaos. He is discovering the law that is inherent in his own physical nature. Man has tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and now his intellect reveals to his astonished gaze the abstract reality of creation.