William Blake: A Guide to William Blake’s Life and Artwork

William Blake was a Romantic-era English poet, visual artist, and printmaker. His visual art, created mostly through relief etching, intaglio engraving, tempera, and watercolor, usually featured Biblical imagery, Greek mythology, or literary allusion. He’s known for extreme experimentation and a body of work that’s difficult to classify or categorize; Blake prized the imagination above all else, claiming it to be the pinnacle of human existence.

Some of William Blake’s most well-known works include The Ancient of Days, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and the illustrations for his collected poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience.

Here’s a brief overview of William Blake’s life and artistic journey:

• Early life. William Blake was born in London in 1757. His father worked as a hosier, a high-earning job that allowed him to provide Blake with books and art supplies at a young age. Blake was baptized in the Church of England and attended public school until the age of 10, when his parents enrolled him in drawing school. It was during this time that he began experimenting with engraving.
• Further studies. At the age of 14, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire, who taught him line-engraving and sent him on errands to Gothic churches, including Westminster Abbey, which profoundly influenced his art. In 1779, Blake enrolled at the Royal Academy, where he expressed distaste for then-popular artists like Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (esteemed by the academy’s president, Joshua Reynolds), preferring classical and Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Raphael.
• Marriage. In 1782, Blake met and married Catherine Boucher, who would become instrumental in his art, helping color his etchings and printing and selling his work.
• Early art. After his marriage, Blake began dedicating more time to his art, using intaglio engraving methods and experimenting with relief etching. During this time, he produced many works, including Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, The Book of Thel, and Visions of the Daughters of Albion, though he sold very few copies during his lifetime. He spent most of his years in London, with a brief stint to Felpham (in the United Kingdom), where he illustrated the works of poet William Hayley.
• Later works. With age, Blake became even more ambitious in his artistic ventures. He wrote and illustrated several pieces inspired by works of literature, including Milton (following a fictional version of Paradise Lost writer John Milton), Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, a work following Canterbury pilgrims from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy. His public reputation as an eccentric adversely affected his art sales. The few illustrations he was able to sell were purchased by friends and artists, such as John Linnell and Thomas Butts.
• Death. Blake died relatively little-known, and after his death, many of his works were lost or burned by acquaintances who considered them heretical or lacking in quality. However, many copies and manuscripts survived and, in 1863, author Alexander Gilchrist published a biography titled The Life of William Blake, which propelled Blake into the spotlight for the first time.

Since his death, many visual artists and writers have cited Blake as a major influence, including Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats, and British composer John Tavener. Blake’s work can be seen in museums worldwide, including the Tate Britain, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

William Blake was known for experimenting with a wide variety of mediums and techniques during his life. However, there are a few principles that remained relatively constant throughout his body of work:

1. 1. Allusion. William Blake took a significant amount of inspiration from other sources when he painted or etched. Many of his works draw on iconic Christian imagery or the Bible, Greek mythology, or famous works of literature—for example, his works Milton and The Ancient of Days. He also used his own poetry for inspiration, as shown in his illuminated book, Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
2. 2. Visual art combined with poetry. Many of William Blake’s visual art pieces are intended to be enjoyed in conjunction with his poetry, rather than viewed in isolation. For example, Blake’s illustration Songs of Innocence and of Experience: The Lamb is printed alongside the body of a poem he wrote with the same name. These combined pieces, bound together in illuminated manuscripts, make up most of Blake’s art.
3. 3. Dark, moody tones. Many of Blake’s paintings and etchings are made up of heavy layers of pigment, resulting in a dim, dramatic mood. These moody paintings are the result of Blake’s experimentation with different mediums in his work—for example, in his work The Bard from Gray, he used a layer of chalk and glue under the pigment, which discolored the piece; for The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, he used watercolor paints on wood, creating a dark, brown-toned piece.

Some of William Blake’s most well-known works include:

1. 1. Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). Sometimes called The Songs of Innocence and Experience, this illuminated book combines Blake’s previous Songs of Innocence with new “poetical sketches” and illustrations. The book contains some of his most well-known works, including his famous illustration of a tiger for his poem, The Tyger.
2. 2. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793). Blake’s watercolor illustrations accompany this book of prose and poetic works. Blake created the book in response to the revolutionary spirit of the times, namely the French revolution and the American revolution.
3. 3. The Ancient of Days (1794). This piece embodies many of Blake’s most common characteristics—a glowing God figure (named, by Blake, “Urizen”) surrounded by heavy, dark tones. The Ancient of Days is an illustration piece meant to be shown alongside Blake’s poem Europe: A Prophecy.
4. 4. The Great Red Dragon and The Woman Clothed in Sun (c. 1805). This ink and watercolor painting features a creature—half-man, half-dragon—standing over a glowing woman. This piece became a part of pop culture history after being featured in Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, the novel that introduced Dr. Hannibal Lecter to the world. The work highlights how Blake played with light and darkness in his career and his ability to create extraordinary mythological creatures.
   
5. 5. Satan Calling Up His Legions (c. 1805). This painting was done as an illustration for John Milton’s famous epic poem, Paradise Lost, depicting Satan surrounded by his devils.
6. 6. The Ghost of a Flea (1820). This illustration depicts one of Blake’s visions, in which he spoke with a flea. This painting serves as one of Blake’s darkest and most brooding works.
7. 7. The Book of Job (1826). William Blake produced a series of 22 engraved intaglio prints as illustrations of the book of Job in the Old Testament, telling the story of his temptation.
8. 8. The Lovers Whirlwind (c. 1827). One of William Blake’s final works, The Lovers Whirlwind is an illustration that Blake painted for Dante’s Inferno, depicting hell as described in Canto V.

Grab the MasterClass Annual Membership and plumb the depths of your creativity with the help of modern artist Jeff Koons, abstract artist Futura, and stage designer Es Devlin. Our exclusive video lessons will teach you to do things like utilize color and scale, explore the beauty in everyday objects, and so much more.