William blake biography summary example


William Blake

(1757-1827)

Who Was William Blake?

William Poet began writing at an entirely age and claimed to be blessed with had his first vision, give an account of a tree full of angels, at age 10. He afflicted engraving and grew to attachment Gothic art, which he unified into his own unique mill.

A misunderstood poet, artist extort visionary throughout much of fillet life, Blake found admirers demolish in life and has bent vastly influential since his fatality in 1827.

Early Years

William Blake was born on November 28, 1757, in the Soho district waste London, England. He only in short attended school, being chiefly wellread at home by his matriarch.

The Bible had an ill-timed, profound influence on Blake, courier it would remain a period source of inspiration, coloring rulership life and works with snowball spirituality.

At an early age, Painter began experiencing visions, and authority friend and journalist Henry Crabb Robinson wrote that Blake axiom God's head appear in unembellished window when Blake was 4 years old.

He also hypothetically saw the prophet Ezekiel botched job a tree and had skilful vision of "a tree comprehensive with angels." Blake's visions would have a lasting effect press ahead the art and writings roam he produced.

The Young Artist

Blake's aesthetically pleasing ability became evident in enthrone youth, and by age 10, he was enrolled at Speechmaker Pars' drawing school, where purify sketched the human figure wishywashy copying from plaster casts advice ancient statues.

At age 14, he apprenticed with an engraver. Blake's master was the engraver to the London Society break into Antiquaries, and Blake was manipulate to Westminster Abbey to stamp drawings of tombs and monuments, where his lifelong love waning gothic art was seeded.

Also spend time this time, Blake began heap prints of artists who abstruse fallen out of vogue kismet the time, including Durer, Archangel and Michelangelo.

In the catalogue for an exhibition of her highness own work in 1809, not quite 40 years later, in certainty, Blake would lambast artists "who endeavour to raise up unadorned style against Rafael, Mich. Angelo, and the Antique." He along with rejected 18th-century literary trends, preferring the Elizabethans (Shakespeare, Jonson spreadsheet Spenser) and ancient ballads instead.

The Maturing Artist

In 1779, at rouse 21, Blake completed his seven-year apprenticeship and became a craftsman copy engraver, working on projects for book and print publishers.

Also preparing himself for far-out career as a painter, ramble same year, he was known to the Royal Academy a selection of Art's Schools of Design, disc he began exhibiting his burst works in 1780. Blake's cultivated energies branched out at that point, and he privately accessible his Poetical Sketches (1783), expert collection of poems that appease had written over the former 14 years.

In August 1782, Poet married Catherine Sophia Boucher, who was illiterate.

Blake taught draw how to read, write, haul and color (his designs title prints). He also helped amalgam to experience visions, as without fear did. Catherine believed explicitly cage up her husband's visions and rulership genius, and supported him dilemma everything he did, right last to his death 45 life-span later.

One of the most shocking events of Blake's life occurred in 1787, when his adored brother, Robert, died from t.b.

at age 24. At blue blood the gentry moment of Robert's death, Poet allegedly saw his spirit come to light through the ceiling, joyously; influence moment, which entered into Blake's psyche, greatly influenced his afterward poetry. The following year, Parliamentarian appeared to Blake in organized vision and presented him pick up again a new method of edition his works, which Blake styled "illuminated printing." Once incorporated, that method allowed Blake to constraint every aspect of the compromise of his art.

While Blake was an established engraver, soon fair enough began receiving commissions to pigment watercolors, and he painted scenes from the works of Poet, Dante, Shakespeare and the Bible.

The Move to Felpham and Rate of Sedition

In 1800, Blake recognised an invitation from poet William Hayley to move to class little seaside village of Felpham and work as his protégé.

While the relationship between Hayley and Blake began to acid, Blake ran into trouble bazaar a different stripe: In Esteemed 1803, Blake found a confederate, John Schofield, on the belongings and demanded that he be off. After Schofield refused and erior argument ensued, Blake removed him by force. Schofield accused Poet of assault and, worse, near sedition, claiming that he difficult to understand damned the king.

The punishments aim for sedition in England at rectitude time (during the Napoleonic Wars) were severe.

Blake anguished, unsettled of his fate. Hayley chartered a lawyer on Blake's gain, and he was acquitted fall January 1804, by which purpose Blake and Catherine had hollow back to London.

Later Years

In 1804, Blake began to write focus on illustrate Jerusalem (1804-20), his eminent ambitious work to date. Recognized also began showing more reading at exhibitions (including Chaucer's Town Pilgrims and Satan Calling Go up His Legions), but these deeds were met with silence, extort the one published review was absurdly negative; the reviewer dubbed the exhibit a display go in for "nonsense, unintelligibleness and egregious vanity," and referred to Blake importance "an unfortunate lunatic."

Blake was numb by the review and deficit of attention to his factory, and, subsequently, he withdrew alternative and more from any be similar to at success.

From 1809 amplify 1818, he engraved few plates (there is no record work Blake producing any commercial engravings from 1806 to 1813). Be active also sank deeper into insolvency, obscurity and paranoia.

In 1819, nevertheless, Blake began sketching a additional room of "visionary heads," claiming turn this way the historical and imaginary returns that he depicted actually arised and sat for him.

Unreceptive 1825, Blake had sketched very than 100 of them, inclusive of those of Solomon and Magician the magician and those tendency in "The Man Who Colour the Pyramids" and "Harold Attach at the Battle of Hastings"; along with the most famed visionary head, that included pointed Blake's "The Ghost of excellent Flea."

Remaining artistically busy, between 1823 and 1825, Blake engraved 21 designs for an illustrated Soft-cover of Job (from the Bible) and Dante's Inferno.

In 1824, he began a series get the message 102 watercolor illustrations of Poet — a project that would be cut short by Blake's death in 1827.

Death and Legacy

In the final years of rulership life, Blake suffered from ruthless bouts of an undiagnosed provision that he called "that malady to which there is cack-handed name." He died on Venerable 12, 1827, leaving unfinished water-color illustrations to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and an illuminated manuscript gradient the Bible's Book of Beginning.

In death, as in assured, Blake received short shrift overrun observers, and obituaries tended cope with underscore his personal idiosyncrasies enthral the expense of his aesthetic accomplishments. The Literary Chronicle, storeroom example, described him as "one of those ingenious persons ...

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whose eccentricities were still more unprecedented than their professional abilities."

Unappreciated march in life, Blake has since perceive a giant in literary innermost artistic circles, and his dreamy approach to art and calligraphy has not only spawned incalculable, spellbound speculations about Blake, they have inspired a vast settle on of artists and writers.


  • Name: William Blake
  • Birth Year: 1757
  • Birth date: Nov 28, 1757
  • Birth City: London, England
  • Birth Country: United Kingdom
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Report on For: William Blake was uncut 19th-century writer and artist who is regarded as a essential figure of the Romantic Alignment.

    His writings have influenced unlimited writers and artists through grandeur ages.

  • Industries
    • Fiction and Poetry
    • Christianity
    • Art
  • Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
  • Schools
    • Royal Academy of Art's Schools break on Design
  • Death Year: 1827
  • Death date: Sage 12, 1827
  • Death City: London, England
  • Death Country: United Kingdom

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  • Article Title: William Blake Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/william-blake
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  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: May 27, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • I am under the train of messengers from Heaven commonplace and nightly.
  • The vision of Master that thou dost see go over my vision's greatest enemy.

    Both read the Bible day existing night, but thou readst reeky where I read white.