ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by sketching the extent to which William Blake and a number of his contemporaries made visionary experiences the basis for their public art. It looks at Blake’s early The French Revolution, which differs from most of the other works discussed throughout in that it was intended as a commercial venture with the bookseller Joseph Johnson. The numerous ‘Visionary Heads’, which Blake recorded on paper, included diverse personages as King Solomon, King John, Pindar, Milton, and Voltaire. Closer to Blake in time was the visionary poet William Gilbert, who also wanted to liberalize vision for the benefit of millennial renewal. For Blake, the visionary or prophetic qualities of his works were a constant obstacle to his popular acceptance and public reception. On 12 December 1785, the Swedenborgian propagator Benedict Chastanier was initiated into the art of magnetic healing by John Bonniot de Mainauduc, the high priest among magnetizers in England.
