An Allegory of the Spiritual Condition of Man

This allegorical painting of 1811 embodies Blake's unique fusion of Christianity, Neoplatonism, and his own prophetic mythology. Blake regarded conventional religion and rational philosophy alike as forms of spiritual bondage, and his paintings propose an alternative vision of human consciousness that baffled most contemporary viewers but would profoundly influence the Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolists. Blake worked outside all institutional frameworks—never exhibiting at the Royal Academy, printing his books himself in tiny editions—yet his influence on subsequent British art and literature proved vast, from the Pre-Raphaelites to the 20th-century counterculture.

The composition is organized according to Blake's characteristic principle of visionary symmetry, with figures arranged in symbolic rather than naturalistic spatial relationships. His experimental tempera medium creates a luminous, matte surface quite unlike contemporary oil paintings.