WILLIAM BLAKE

William Blake was born in 28A Broad Street, Golden Square, London, England on 28 November 1757, to a middle-class
family. He was the third of 7 children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a hosier. He began writing
at an early age and he studied engraving and grew to love Gothic art, which he incorporated into his own unique works.
He only briefly attended school, being chiefly educated at home by his mother. The Bible had an early, profound
influence on Blake, and it would remain a lifetime source of inspiration, colouring his life and works with intense
spirituality.

At a very young age, he began experiencing visions, and his friend and journalist Henry Crabb Robinson, wrote that he
saw God’s head appear in a window when William was just 4 years old. He also presumably saw the prophet Ezekiel
under a tree and had a vision of “a tree filled with
angels”. His visions would have a lasting effect on the art and writings that he produced.

William’s artistic ability became clearly evident when he was young, and by the age of
10, he was enrolled at Henry Pars’ drawing school, where he sketched a human figure by copying from plaster casts of
ancient statues. Then, at the age of 14, he apprenticed with an engraver. He was sent to Westminster Abbey to make
drawings of tombs and monuments, where his lifelong love f gothic art seeded.

Also around this time, William began collecting prints of artists who had fallen out of vogue at this time, including Durer,
Raphael and Michelangelo. In the catalogue for an exhibition of his own work in 1809, nearly 40 years later, in fact, he
would criticize at artists “ who endeavour to raise up a style against Rafael, Mich. Angelo and the Antique.” he also
rejected 18th century literary trends, preferring the Elizabethans ( Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser) and ancient ballads
instead.
On 18 August 1782 William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher at the Church of St Mary in Battersea. Blake also
wrote poems. A book of poems called Poetical Sketches was published in 1783. In 1789 he published a book of poems called
The Song of Innocence.

In 1800 William Blake moved to the village of Felpham near Bognor in Sussex. Then on 12 August 1803 Blake got into a
fight with a soldier named John Schofield who entered his garden. Schofield later told a magistrate that Blake damned the
king of England during the altercation. William Blake was tried for sedition (a serious charge) in Chichester in January 1804.
However he was acquitted. Meanwhile in 1803 Blake and his wife returned to London. In the years 1804-1810 William
Blake wrote and illustrated his work Milton A Poem in Two Books. The preface included the famous poem now know as
Jerusalem, which was written in 1804. (Blake did not actually give it that title. It was originally called 'And did those feet in
ancient time'. Hubert Parry wrote music for it in 1916). In 1820 Blake painted The Goblin. He also painted a miniature called
The Ghost of a Flea.

In 1825 Blake was commissioned illustrate Divine Comedy by Dante but he died before he could complete the task. William
Blake died on 12 August 1827. He was buried in Bunhill Fields in London..