Product Description
Ancient of Days by William Blake Rustic Wood Plaque
This rustic wood plaque featuring Ancient of Days by William Blake comes from trees grown and harvested in Ohio and is 100% made in the U.S.A. Each solid wood plaque is hewn and joined together by the hands of our Steubenville woodworkers then digitally printed with hi-tech inks that slowly stain and permeate the wood with a scratch-free work of art.
Because these rustic plaques are made from real, solid wood, each piece may have minor cracks, knots, and other imperfections that add character and authenticity. As unique as human fingerprints, no two plaques are alike.
Smaller sizes of plaques are cut from single boards, while larger sizes are made up of several boards joined together.
In Ancient of Days, English poet and painter William Blake imagines God the Father mapping out the cosmos with a compass of light and willing the universe into existence. The title "Ancient of Days" is a reference to the Old Testament book of the prophet Daniel, the same passage that Jesus frequently referenced when he referred to himself as the "Son of Man." This piece is said to have been Blake's favorite work; he hand-painted 13 known copies of Ancient of Days, each with slight variations in color and style.
William Blake himself was a tremendously gifted artist - a poet, engraver, printer, and painter - whose passion and desire to seek the face of God was compromised by his brooding cynicism. Thomas Merton called it "the rebellion of the saints," and likened Blake to an irate prophet of the Old Testament for 18th century England. Blake intensely loathed Christian hypocrisy, moralism, and stodginess, and so had an unfortunately adversarial relationship with the Anglican church of his time, and indeed, organized religion in general. Jesus Christ nonetheless fascinated Blake, as did the stories, allegories, and metaphors of Sacred Scripture, and if you gauge the man by the art he created, it appears that Blake spent his entire life attempting to grapple with the mystery and transcendence of God. Those who have had a more docile relationship to the Church and fellow Christians throughout their lives should have compassion on Blake and his unvarnished, wrestling soul, and pray for his repose. Through the mercy of God, may William Blake find peace in the Kingdom that his heart was searching for while on Earth.
