William Blake

by abdo Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:28 pm

William
Blake

For
other people of the same name, see William
Blake (disambiguation).

William Blake
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] William Blake in an 1807 portrait by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Born	28 November 1757(1757-11-28) London, England
Died	12 August 1827(1827-08-12) (aged 69) London, England
Occupation	Poet, painter, printmaker
Genres	Visionary, poetry
Literary movement	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Notable work(s)	Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], And did those feet in ancient time
Spouse(s)	Catherine Blake (1782–1827)
Influences[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] · The Bible, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Influenced[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] · [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], John Gardner, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

William Blake (28
November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake
is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual
arts of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. His prophetic poetry has been said to form
"what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the
English language".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} His
visual artistry has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far
and away the greatest artist Britain
has ever produced".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} he
produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination
as "the body of God",^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} or
"Human existence itself".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Considered [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by
later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical
and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been
characterised as part of both the Romantic
movement and "Pre-Romantic",^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} for
its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to
the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} as
well as by such thinkers as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Despite these known
influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify.
The 19th century scholar [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] characterised Blake as a
"glorious luminary,"^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
as "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with
contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Early life

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A
plaque at William Blake House, a modern block of flats at 28 Broadwick St where
Blake was born and lived until he was 25.

William Blake was born on 28
November 1757 at 28 Broad Street
(now Broadwick St) in the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
district of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. He was
the third of seven children,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
two of whom died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
William attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving
at the age of ten, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine
Wright Armitage Blake.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The Blakes were [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and are believed to have belonged to the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. The
Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source
of inspiration throughout his life.

Blake started engraving
copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, a
practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake
found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. His
parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to
school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects
of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations
into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Apprenticeship to Basire

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The
archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in Blake's work. Here, the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
figure [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] prays before
the world he has forged. The Song
of Los is the third in a series of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] painted by Blake and his
wife, collectively known as the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

On 4 August 1772, Blake
became apprenticed to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] James
Basire of Great
Queen Street, for the term of seven years.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
At the end of this period, at the age of 21, he was to become a professional
engraver. No record survives of any serious disagreement or conflict between
the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship. However, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]'s biography
notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic
adversaries—and then cross it out.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
This aside, Basire's style of engraving was of a kind held to be old-fashioned
at the time,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
and Blake's instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his
acquiring of work or recognition in later life.

After two years, Basire sent
his apprentice to copy images from the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] churches in London (perhaps to settle a quarrel between
Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice). His experiences in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day was decorated
with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies, and varicoloured waxworks.
Ackroyd notes that "...the most immediate [impression] would have been of
faded brightness and colour".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally
interrupted by the boys of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
one of whom "tormented" Blake so much one afternoon that he knocked
the boy off a scaffold to the ground, "upon which he fell with terrific
Violence".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Blake beheld more visions in the Abbey, of a great procession of monks and
priests, while he heard "the chant of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]."

Royal Academy

On 8 October 1779, Blake
became a student at the Royal
Academy in Old Somerset House, near the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his
own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what
he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
championed by the school's first president, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Over
time, Blake came to detest Reynolds' attitude towards art, especially his
pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty". Reynolds
wrote in his Discourses that the "disposition to abstractions, to
generalising and classification, is the great glory of the human mind";
Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that "To Generalize
is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Blake also disliked Reynolds' apparent humility, which he held to be a form of
hypocrisy. Against Reynolds' fashionable oil painting, Blake preferred the
Classical precision of his early influences, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

David Bindman suggests that
Blake's antagonism towards Reynolds arose not so much from the president's
opinions (like Blake, Reynolds held history painting to be of greater value
than landscape and portraiture), but rather "against his hypocrisy in not
putting his ideals into practice."^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Certainly Blake was not averse to exhibiting at the Royal Academy,
submitting works on six occasions between 1780 and 1808.

Blake became friends with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
during his first year at the Royal
Academy. They shared
radical views, with Stothard and Cumberland
joining the Society
for Constitutional Information.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Gordon Riots

Blake's first biographer, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
records that in June 1780 Blake was walking towards Basire's shop in Great
Queen Street when he was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in
London.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
They attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building
ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front
rank of the mob during this attack. These riots, in response to a parliamentary
bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, later came to be known as
the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. They
provoked a flurry of legislation from the government of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], as well as the
creation of the first police force.

Despite Gilchrist's
insistence that Blake was "forced" to accompany the crowd, some
biographers have argued that he accompanied it impulsively, or supported it as
a revolutionary act.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In contrast, Jerome McGann argues that the riots were reactionary, and that
events would have provoked "disgust" in Blake.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Oberon,
Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)

Marriage and early career

Blake met Catherine
Boucher in 1782. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that
had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of
his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine,
"Do you pity me?" When she responded affirmatively, he declared,
"Then I love you." Blake married Catherine – who was five years his
junior – on 18 August 1782
in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an 'X'. The original
wedding certificate may still be viewed at the church, where a commemorative
stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her
as an engraver. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him,
helping to print his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and maintaining his
spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.

Blake's first collection of
poems, Poetical
Sketches, was printed around 1783.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
After his father's death, William and former fellow apprentice James Parker
opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Johnson's house was a meeting-place for some of the leading English intellectual
dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
philosopher [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
artist [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
early feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft and American revolutionary [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Along with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Blake had great hopes for the French revolution and American revolutions and
wore a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in
solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in
France. In 1784 Blake also composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in
the Moon.

Blake illustrated Original
Stories from Real Life (1788; 1791) by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
They seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and the institution of
marriage, but there is no evidence proving without doubt that they actually
met. In 1793's Visions
of the Daughters of Albion, Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of
enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to
complete self-fulfillment.

Relief etching

In 1788, at the age of 31,
Blake began to experiment with relief
etching, a method he would use to produce most of his books, paintings,
pamphlets and poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing,
and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing
involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes,
using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in
the manner of earlier [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. He then etched the
plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing
in relief (hence the name).

This is a reversal of the
normal method of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by
the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] method. Relief
etching (which Blake also referred to as "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]" in The Ghost of Abel)
was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than
via intaglio. Stereotype, a process invented in 1725, consisted of making a
metal cast from a wood engraving, but Blake’s innovation was, as described
above, very different. The pages printed from these plates then had to be
hand-coloured in water colours and stitched together to make up a volume. Blake
used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Engravings

Although Blake has become
most famous for his relief etching, his commercial work largely consisted of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the standard process of
engraving in the eighteenth century in which the artist would incise an image
into the copper plate. This was a complex and laborious process, with plates
taking months or years to complete, but as Blake's contemporary, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], realised,
such engraving offered a "missing link with commerce", enabling
artists to connect with a mass audience and so becoming an immensely important
activity by the end of the eighteenth century.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Blake also employed intaglio
engraving in his own work, most notably for the illustrations of the
Book of Job, completed just before his death. Most critical work has tended
to concentrate on Blake's relief etching as a technique because it is the most
innovative aspect of his art, but a 2009 study draws attention to Blake's
surviving plates, including those for the Book of Job: these demonstrate that
he made frequent use of a technique known as "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]",
a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of
the plate. Such techniques, typical of engraving work of the time, are very
different to the much faster and fluid way of drawing on a plate that Blake
employed for his relief etching, and indicates why the engravings took so long
to complete.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Later life and career

Blake's marriage to Catherine
remained a close and devoted one until his death. Blake taught Catherine to
write, and she helped him to colour his printed poems.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Gilchrist refers to "stormy times" in the early years of the
marriage.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the more radical
branches of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
William and Catherine's first daughter and last child might be Thel described
in The Book of Thel who was conceived as dead.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The Night
of Enitharmon's Joy, 1795. Blake's vision of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Greek goddess of black
magic and the underworld