The history of William Blake's life begins in England during the period of the Age of Enlightenment, a cross-continental movement that emphasized new, societal ideals such as freedom, democracy, and reason. This is important because many of the new ideas and information which reshaped the social and political systems in England, also helped to shape Blake's beliefs, or opinions, regarding humanity and religion.
It's a boy!
William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 to a middle class family, headed by James Blake and Catherine Wright Armitage Blake. The Blakes were a middle class family, who resided on 28 Broad Street in London, England. William was the third child born out of seven children, two of whom died during infancy in Blake's early years, and was educated at home by his mother until about the age of 14.
Since Blake was known to consistently maintain a headstrong temperment as a young boy, his parents elected to steer him towards an apprenticeship rather than a school or university, when it came time to continue his education beyond the teachings of his mother. Before he reached the age of 15, William Blake had taken a liking to engraving antique copies of Greek drawings that his father had purchased for him as a boy.
At the time, engraving was gaining popularity throughout England and Europe and was often preferred to the actual drawings that were used as templates. Through his exposure to these drawings, Blake became intrigued by classical forms and took interest in the works of famous artists such as Michaelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerk, and Raffaello Urbino. Meanwhile, he began his exploration of poetry, writing his first poem, which he called "Song," at the young age of 14.
Get to work!
Due to his new passion and the immense skill he possessed as an engraver, William Blake was apprenticed by his father to James Basire, a local, professional engraver and printmaker, on August 4th, 1771. James Basire resided and maintained his own shop at 31 Great Queen Street and was considered "a highly responsible, liberal-minded, yet conservative line engraver" who specialized in architectural prints. Under the watchful eye of Basire, William Blake learned the essential skills of intaglio etching and engraving, including how to polish copper plates, sharpen gravers, and how to create bold, linear prints. Although James Basire served as an adequate teacher to William Blake, his antique engraving style and dry techniques were largely considered to be out-dated during the period of Blake's apprenticeship. This may explain why Blake's work was not solicited during his lifetime nor "discovered" until almost thirty years after his death in 1827.
After two years as an apprentice, Basire sent William Blake to study Gothic-style architecture, particularly churches, throughout London where Blake's notable work on the Westminster Abbey became his main focus and contributed to his own ideas regarding artistic style. William Blake was to serve seven years as an apprentice to Basire, and at age 21, was to become a professional engraver himself, however he remained in contact with Basire after the end of his apprenticeship in 1778.
Blake went on to study at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House on October 8, 1779, where he blatantly rebuffed the work of popular painters, such as Peter Paul Rubens, who he regarded as maintaining an "unfinished style". Since the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds, supported the fashionable style of oil painting as a model for the academy's students, William Blake consistently detested Reynolds and mocked him in response to Reynolds discourse writings, saying "to generalize is to be an idiot; to particularize is the alone distinction of merit." Nonetheless, Blake remained at the school, where many of his early drawings and paintings were created, and frequently exhibited his art, which totaled six submissions between 1780 and 1808.
Would you be my wife, Catherine?
In 1782, William Blake was introduced to his soon-to-be best friend, John Flaxman, and Catherine Sophia Boucher. At the time, Blake was recovering from a heart-breaking relationship in which his proposal of marriage was refused. Upon recounting the story for Catherine, he asked "Do you pity me?" When she replied that she did, he responded by saying, "Then I love you for that!" Their courtship led quickly to their marriage at St. Mary's Church in Battersea, London on August 18th, 1782. William Blake took it upon himself to teach Catherine how to read and write, while she also took interest in engraving and eventually began learning the essentials of the art under the teachings of her husband. Throughout the remainder of his life, she would remain a loyal supporter and aid of his work, in both a physical and mental sense, and helped to maintain his spirits during his numerous misfortunes.
Please, come in!
Shortly after her married Catherine, William Blake met the man who would soon become his lifelong friend and patron, George Cumberland. Cumberland is well known for being one of the founders of the National Gallery and in 1783, he took notice of Blake's work and urged him to begin publishing and distributing his favorite pieces. He took his friend's advice and his first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published. After his father's death, William Blake returned to Broad Street to care for his mother where he and his younger brother Robert opened up their own print shop in 1784. The Blake brothers began working with a radical publisher named Joseph Johnson, who entertained various English, intellectual dissidents such as theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley, philosopher Richard Price, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and many others. Shortly after meeting Johnson, Blake agreed to illustrate Mary Wollstonecraft's work "Original Stories from Real Life" (1788). In 1793, he was inspired by Wollstonecraft's beliefs, which were similar to his own, and completed his illuminated book "Visions of the Daughters of Albion."
Time to settle down...
Around 1788, William Blake began experimenting with an art technique called "relief etching", also known as "illuminated printing." Using the method of relief etching while dabbling in intaglio (repoussage) engraving, Blake produced some of his most well-known works of art over the next 30 years. He preferred illuminated printing to the other techniques and used it to compose and illustrate his various pieces including The Songs of Innocence, The Songs of Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and Jerusalem. It is believed that The Book of Thel was based of William and Catherine Blake's first and only child, Thel, who is believed to have been still born.
From 1800 until around 1804, Blake commissioned his abilities and worked with a man named William Hayley in order to illustrate his works as a minor poet. To do this, he and Catherine briefly moved to Felpham and then returned in 1804, after Hayley and Blake had a falling-out, where Blake began working on his most ambitious piece, Jerusalem. The shop William Blake had opened with his brother in 1784 had since been converted into a haberdashery. In pursuit of sound business, Blake convinced his brother to allow him to hold a marketing exhibition of his work, including his own illustrated version of the Canterbury Tales (see below). The exhibition was a complete flop in that very few people took notice and the only review it did receive was immensely hostile.
Around age 65, William Blake was introduced to John Linnell, a young artist who belonged to a group called Shoreham Ancients. The Shoreham Ancients was a group of artists with whom Blake could align his views of rejecting modern trends and embracing a spiritual and artistic New Age. Soon finding new inspiration, William Blake began working on The Book of Jobs and in 1826 was commissioned by Linnell to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy through a series of engravings. The existing Dante watercolors are among the richest and most beautiful achievements done by Blake, since each tale included complex poems that proved difficult to illustrate.
William Blake's work on Dante's Divine Comedy was cut short by his death in 1827, with only seven of his engravings having arrived at proof form. His wife Catherine survived him for four years after his death and both were buried at Bunhill Fields in London. The exact spot at which the couple was buried remains lost to this day, however a monument was erected approximately 20 meters away from their suspected resting place.
