William Blake

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. During his lifetime, he received little recognition, but he later became a key figure in Romantic-era poetry and visual art. The 20th-century critic Northrop Frye described Blake’s so-called “prophetic works” as, given their quality, the least-read body of poetry in the English language. Blake spent almost his entire life in London, apart from three years in Felpham, and created a varied, symbol-heavy body of work. He viewed the imagination as “the body of God” or “human existence itself.”

Contemporaries often considered Blake mad because of his unusual views, but later critics and readers valued his expressiveness, creativity, and the philosophical and mystical layers in his work. His paintings and poetry are seen as part of the Romantic movement, sometimes labelled “Pre-Romantic.” He strongly opposed the Church of England and most organized religion, and was shaped by the ideals of the French and American Revolutions. Though he later rejected many of those political beliefs, he stayed friendly with the activist Thomas Paine. The thinker Emanuel Swedenborg also influenced him. Despite these influences, Blake’s work is hard to categorize. The 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti called him a “glorious luminary,” a man with no clear predecessors, no true contemporaries, and no likely successors. Blake’s wife, Catherine Boucher, was crucial to producing many of his books. She worked as a printmaker and colourist for his projects. According to literary scholar Angus Whitehead, for nearly forty-five years she was the person who lived and worked most closely with Blake, making many projects possible that would have been impossible without her. Catherine was an artist and printer in her own right. **Early life**

William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) in Soho, London. He was the third of seven children; two died in infancy. His father, James, was a hosier who lived in London. William attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at age ten, and was otherwise taught at home by his mother, Catherine Blake (née Wright). Although the Blakes were Moravians and English Dissenters, William was baptised on 11 December at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London. The Bible influenced him early and deeply, remaining a lifelong inspiration. Blake later said his childhood included mystical experiences, such as “beholding God’s face pressed against his window, seeing angels among the haystacks, and being visited by the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel.”

Blake began engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities his father bought him—a practice he preferred to drawing directly. Through these, he first encountered classical forms via Raphael, Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck, and Albrecht Dürer. The number of prints and bound books James and Catherine bought for young William suggests the family enjoyed comfortable wealth, at least for a time. When William turned ten, his parents, aware of his strong-willed nature, did not send him to school but enrolled him in drawing classes at Henry Pars’s drawing school in the Strand. He read widely on subjects he chose himself. During this period, he began writing poetry; his early work shows knowledge of Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, and the Psalms. **Apprenticeship**

On 4 August 1772, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street for seven years, at a cost of £52.10. When the term ended, at age 21, he became a professional engraver. No record exists of serious conflict between the two during the apprenticeship, though Peter Ackroyd’s biography notes that Blake later added Basire’s name to a list of artistic adversaries, then crossed it out. Basire’s line-engraving style was considered old-fashioned compared to flashier stipple or mezzotint methods. Some speculate that learning this outdated technique may have hurt Blake’s later career opportunities. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from Gothic churches in London, possibly to settle a quarrel between Blake and fellow apprentice James Parker. Blake’s time in Westminster Abbey shaped his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey then featured suits of armour, painted funeral effigies, and colourful waxworks. Ackroyd notes that the most immediate impression would have been of faded brightness and colour. This close study of the Gothic—which Blake saw as “living form”—left clear marks on his style. During long afternoons sketching in the Abbey, Blake was sometimes interrupted by boys from Westminster School, who were allowed inside. They teased him; one tormented him so much that Blake knocked the boy off a scaffold, “upon which he fell with terrific Violence.” After Blake complained to the Dean, the schoolboys lost their privilege. Blake said he experienced visions in the Abbey, seeing Christ with his Apostles, a great procession of monks and priests, and hearing their chant. **Royal Academy**

On 8 October 1779, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand.