William Blake and the Age of Aquarius

William Blake and the Age of Aquarius is a beautifully illustrated look at how, some two hundred years after his birth, the antiestablishment values embodied in Blake’s art and poetry became a model for artists of the American counterculture.This book provides new insights into the politics and protests of Blake’s own lifetime, and the generation of artists who revived and reimagined his work in the mid-1940s through 1970, or what might be called the “long sixties.” Contributors explore Blake’s outsider status in Georgian Engla

Much as it did for the artists and activists of the Beat and hippie generations, Blake's visionary antiestablishment thought and work can perhaps again offer a reference point for those today who are struggling to produce an artistic response appropriate to the new century's demands."--Michael Archer, author of Art Since 1960"This is a jewel of a book. From the Back Cover"A timely book that provides fresh perspective on the art of the 1960s. It revisits the searing and soaring works of Blake through their reincarnation in the 1960s counterculture, deepening the understanding of both."--Daniel Herwitz, author of The Star as Icon: Celebrity in the Age of Mass Consumption

John P. Elizabeth Ferrell is assistant professor of art history at Arcadia University. W.J.T. . Mark Crosby is assistant professor of English at Kansas State University. Murphy is research associate in the Department of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Eisenman is prof