the street is our gallery

Titled ”Tyger Tyger Burning Bright” this mural is the latest beautiful and thought-provoking work from Jim Vision who painted it in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The mural features an excerpt from William Blake‘s Tyger Tyger poem.

Through researching the imagery featured in the mural one can discover the incredible meaning and symbolism within Blake’s poem. The symbolic tiger represents (wo)mans fierce force of the human soul, created in the fire of imagination. Hopefully this piece inspires people to free their minds, hearts and souls and fight with revolutionary spirit the evil systems that oppress us and corrupt us.

The two tygers represent humanity set against itself, fighting in the forest of night, a forest of ignorance and false institutions set ablaze by the imagination of the visionary artists and gods of creation.

The Tyger
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

Painted by @jimvision with the support of @endofthelineldn