Born #OTD in 1757: English poet, painter, printmaker and mentor of the Shoreham Ancients…William Blake
Creator of Jerusalem and The Tyger he is considered one of the greatest artists and poets in the English language. But what do we really know about him? 🧵1/8
#WilliamBlake
William Blake was born on Broad Street, Golden Square, London to a middle-class family third of 7 children. James Blake his father was a hosier. Will never attended school, educated at home by his mother. The Blakes were Moravian Dissenters 2/8
Blake’s parents knew his headstrong temperament as a boy would best be enrolled in drawing classes as he showed interest in art. He read avidly and also made early explorations into poetry. 4th August 1772 at 15 he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire 3/8
In 1778, at 21 Blake became a student at the Royal Academy near the Strand. There rebelling against the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds Blake came to resent Reynolds' attitude toward art as Blake preferred the Classical influences of Michelangelo and Raphael 4/8
On 18th August 1782 at 25 he married 20 year old Catherine Boucher St. Mary's Church, Battersea. He taught her to read and had a long loving 45 year marriage often calling her his Shadow of Delight 💛✨ 5/8
Between 1800 and 1803 Blake lived in the Sussex village of Felpham having composed his prophetic and famous work Jerusalem. Eventually worried by an impending trial he returned to London close to Tyburn (Marble Arch) 6/8
In 1818 he was introduced to John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer, and his friends a group of artists calling themselves the Shoreham Ancients. They shared Blake's belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age modelled on Medieval rural ideals 7/8
Blake forsook material gain worked constantly until the day he died 12th August 1827. 3 days later Ancient George Richmond writes to Samuel Palmer “Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten and He burst out into Singing of the things he saw in Heaven” 8/8
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