William Blake: Apprentice and Master – reviews of exhibition

What you need to know

A major survey show about the life and work of William Blake has opened at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The show looks at Blake's career from his youth as an apprentice engraver to his maturity as a printmaker, artist and poet during a time of great social and political upheaval.

The show features more than 90 works focusing on Blake's methods of printing and engraving, including his famous Nebuchadnezzar image and illustrations from his Songs of Innocence poems. It also features a life-size reconstruction of Blake's printing studio in Lambeth. Runs until 1 March.

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What the critics like

Deeply moral, while rejecting conventional morality, claimed by left and right, "Blake remains as relevant as ever", says Zoe Pilger in The Independent. It's wonderful to see all his works, from exciting coloured etchings of cosmological storytelling, to a startling colour print of Nebuchadnezzar and a fascinating title page from Songs of Innocence.

"Blake remains a paradox of a radical reactionary, his vision still pertinent," says Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times. His etching, 'Head of a Damned Soul', is an image of inner torment anticipating Munch's The Scream and a defining work of the romantic imagination.

Fascinating though Blake's imagination and visions can be, they can also be a barrier to the appreciation of his art, leading some to suggest he was a madman, says Martin Gayford in Country Life. But Blake, who trained at the Royal Academy, was not altogether an outsider, and this exhibition "puts the brilliance and novelty of his work as an engraver/printer/poet in the foreground".

What they don't like

It's a fascinating but erratic and frustrating show, on the one hand "a fanatical survey of Blake's graphic techniques", on the other offering a left-field genius among all the documents and data, says Laura Cumming in The Observer. Blake's extraordinary visions should be free to fly, but here, alas, didacticism draws them closer to earth.