william blake // biography (1757-1827) / gallery / prints

//Biog.//

L e n i n i m p o r t s . c o m

//William Blake//

Known as: English poet, painter, & printmaker.

Born: November 28, 1757

Place of birth: 28a Broad Street, Golden Square, London

Date of death: August 12, 1827

Place of death: London

Interred: Bunhill Fields, London

If ever there was a man with a greater imagination than William Blake well I haven't heard of them. Through the filter of his mind he created work of visionary proportions.

Painter and poet, he made the two disciplines one and the same. He was a man so far ahead of his time that that time never caught up with him. He died penniless and when alive made a meagre living working for publishers as an engraver. Says it all really.

He loathed slavery, believed in the American and French revolution and subscribed to racial and sexual equality. Sexual equality extended into his own life where his wife of nearly 45 years (only death parted them) Catherine was an important part in the production of his work. To Blake humanity was universal as all men were alike. He recognised no form of imposed authority even that of the Church.

And one small thing to me shows that Britain of that time was unworthy of him: he was a vegetarian! I mean, 200 years before Paul McCartney, Blake was there!

His greatest works are the twenty-one large watercolours illustrationg the Book of Job, the firsts et of which was probaly made c.1818/20, and a second set commissioned by the artist John Linnell and produced from 1821 and engraved in 1823-5; 102 illustrations to Dante (also suggested to him by Linnell), six of which were engraved at Blake's death; and his colour-printed drawings, which include Nebuchadnezzar, Hecate and Elijah in the Chariot of Fire. These were made by printing off a design prepared in distemper on millboard, and then finishing each individually. Most of his designs were carried out in normal watercolour technique, but are in a highly unorthodox form of tempera which has deteriorated badly.

Biog. II

Dateline:

1757: Born August 12 into a middle-class family. 1 of 4 children. The family were Dissenters
1760s: First recorded Blake visions. Began engraving and writing poetry
1772: Apprenticed to an engraver, James Basire of Great Queen, until the age of 21
1779: Became a student at Royal Academy
1780: Involved in the rioting of Newgate Prison in London (the Gordon Riots)
1782: Met John Flaxman who would become his patron. Met Catherine Boucher. They married on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary's Church, Battersea
1783: First collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, published
1784: Death of father. He and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, working with the publisher Joseph Johnson. Through Johnson met mant of the leading dissidents of the day
1788: Illustrated Mary Wollstonecraft's book Original Stories from Real Life. Wollstonecraft was the leading feminist of the day, Started experimenting with relief etching
1789: Published himself Songs of Innocence
1793: Published Visions of the Daughters of Albion
1794: Published himself Songs of Experience
1800: Moved to a cottage at Felpham near Bognor in Sussex to take up a job illustrating the works of the poet William Hayley. Wrote Milton: A Poem. Among the circle of Hayley were John Flaxman and George Romney. Blake had an uneasy relationship with all of them
1802: Returned to London. It was around this time that he met the artist John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer
1803: Cleared by the Chichester assizes of charges of uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King
1804-20: wrote and illustrated his great prophetic book Jerusalem
1818/20: Started worked on the Book of Job
1825: Taken severely ill
1827: In March his brother James died. Worked on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno. He died penniless on August 12th. Buried five days later
1831: Wife Catherine died in October