William Blake

William Blake was a true multi-disciplinary creative talent, largely unrecognised during his lifetime, he is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

On 4 August 1772, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, at the sum of £52.10, for a term of seven years. At the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver.

On 8 October 1779, he became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period.

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

Blake's painting Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786) is shown above.

In 1795, Blake painted Newton, it demonstrated his opposition to the single-vision of scientific materialism - Newton fixes his eye on a compass, to write upon a scroll that seems to project from his own head.

He is well known as the writer of the lyrics to the hymn Jerusalem which became the unofficial national anthem of Great Britain.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountain green?

And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. What is now proved was once only imagined.

His poem The Tyger, is perhaps the most famous of his poems and it is his most reinterpreted and arranged works.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

To learn more about William Blake click and explore any of his media channels and network links in the tool-bar above.