This past Tuesday, the Getty Center opened its newest exhibition to the public — a show replete with images of mythological creatures, fantastic portrayals of nature and evocative realizations of religious stories, to name a few.

These imaginative pictures hail from the prodigious creativity of William Blake, the early Romantic poet, printmaker and painter. In this first major West Coast international loan exhibition for Blake, the Getty draws together more than 100 of his most recognizable works, telling the remarkable story of the polymathic artist.

Titled “William Blake: Visionary,” the exhibition traces the career of the iconoclastic figure, from his beginnings as a printmaker — often imitating other artists like Hogarth or Stothard — to the development of his “legendary” style by the end of his life. Though originally scheduled for presentation in 2020, the pandemic forced the museum to push the exhibition dates to 2023. Given the electrifying breadth of the objects now on display, the wait has been well rewarded.

The show progresses through five thematic sections, allowing for focused commentary on the different aspects of his life and output. The exhibition is completely bilingual, with each label provided in both English and Spanish. An audio guide narrated by four contemporary creatives — visual artist Naudline Pierre, graphic novelist Grant Morrison, master printer Jacob Samuel, and university professor and writer Saree Makdisi — walks listeners through their own analyses about Blake’s work.

“What we wanted to achieve with the audio guide is essentially to reinforce this idea that William Blake is open to interpretation, and to encourage our own visitors to think about the material,” said Edina Adam, assistant curator of drawings at the Getty Museum who organized the show in cooperation with Julian Brooks, the museum’s senior curator of drawings.

And indeed, the concept of subjectivity and interpretive flexibility looms large over Blake’s output. The artist often took concrete source matters and added his own meanings or made slight modifications to the subject, requiring the viewer to evaluate how the source and its artistic imitation relate.

This tendency is perhaps most apparent when Blake explores familiar Biblical stories, such as the murder of Abel by Cain or the tribulations of Job. The works invite us to rethink our preconceptions of these stories, while also welcoming those same preconceptions to influence our readings of his art.

The wondrously fantastic imagery that saturates Blake’s oeuvre allows for a wide range of interpretation, as opposed to a more realist, concrete style. His frequent use of allusion and allegory furthers this approach, beckoning his audience to make connections. In contrast to his Neoclassical contemporaries and their standards of objectivity, Blake returns the interpretive power to his audience by creating more subjective images.

“His art is deeply allegorical, it’s open to many different types of interpretations,” Adam said. “Everyone has their own William Blake, and I think that’s an appeal to people.”

Another crucial element of “William Blake: Visionary” is the contextualization of the artist within the larger political and cultural contexts. Blake was well-attuned to the global developments in his lifetime, an age marked by revolution and upheaval in both the Old and New Worlds. The exhibition highlights his unique strategies to confront these progressions in his work, including his own invented mythological figures to retell the story of war in his book “America a Prophecy.”

Even more surprising is the exhibition’s revision of existing narratives surrounding Blake’s supposed ostracization or isolation, labeled as a “madman” by contemporaries for his radical tendencies. In fact, the show compellingly demonstrates that his style, while certainly forward-thinking and highly imaginative, was not completely without peers.

Other artists of the period — including figures like James Gillray, Henry Fuseli and George Romney — are also briefly represented in the exhibition to demonstrate resonances between their works and Blake’s. Though Blake did not get to see the fame or success that his work would attract posthumously, labeling him as an outcast or pariah seems an exaggeration.

Most importantly, “Visionary” demonstrates the strength of Blake’s voice and imagination throughout the exhibition. The show highlights his penchant for trailblazing the Romantic landscape, coming across not only in his aesthetic decisions, but even in the very processes of production as a printmaker and painter. As the Getty exhibition reveals, Blake’s conviction to pursue his own artistic visions has resulted in a lasting affectivity, continuing to inspire audiences two centuries later.

“​​William Blake speaks to creative people,” Adam said. “I’m hoping that by coming here, and by looking at William Blake, they will go away with new ideas that will feed into their own work.”

“William Blake: Visionary” will be on view at the Getty Center until Jan. 14, 2024. Admission is free, but a time-entry reservation must be made at getty.edu.