William Blake

William Blake (1757–1827) was an artist, poet, and engraver born in Soho, London to James Blake and his wife Catherine, née Wright. William was the third son, having four other brothers and one sister. At a very young age Blake showed a growing interest in the arts, particularly pictorial art. At a very young age Blake was sketching regularly and even attending auctions to buy old, out of fashion prints of prominent artists. In 1772 he was apprenticed to James Basire, an old fashion printmaker, with whom Blake most likely spent the next seven years. This profession of engraving and printing would be one that Blake would carry throughout his life. He would achieve what would be expected of an apprenticed engraver; however, his passion for the arts surpassed most in his profession. At the end of his apprenticeship in 1779 Blake was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Arts, where he was allowed to study works in the academy’s collections. The compositions that he created here would cover historical, literary, and biblical subjects. In 1782 Blake would Mary Catherine Sophia Boucher the daughter of a market gardener; however, they would never have any children. The next year his first collection of poems, Political Sketches, was printed. In 1784 he and another apprentice opened a print shop after the death of Blake’s father and they began working with the radical publisher Joseph Johnson. In 1788 Blake began experimenting with relief etching and would later use his innovation to print some of his most well known works. Blake’s first illuminated book of poems Songs of Innocence was published using this relief etching method in 1789. He was very popular among the London booksellers and even came up with an idea for illustrating the characters of the Canterbury Takes, which was eventually stolen from him by Robert Cromek (1770-1812). In 1826 he was commissioned to create a series of engraving on the Divine Comedy by John Linnell, but the project was cut short by Blake’s death. Blake died in 1827, just six hours after completing a portrait of his wife. Some of his other notable works are Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793).