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Biographical Information:
Born in London, Blake's father encouraged his early taste for drawing and sent him at a young age to a drawing school. With 14 he was apprenticed to an engraver who employed him to draw and engrave medieval monuments, particularly sculpture in Westminster Abbey. The study of Gothic art must have proved a congenial occupation for the young engraver, for this source continued to influence his visual imagination. Throughout Blake's life, engraving and printmaking remained the form of artistic activity in which he was most interested and proficient.
Blake exhibited at the Royal Academy sporadically, but he never became an associate as his ideas where contrary to the philosophy of the institution. Blake maintained that ideal forms of beauty are not compounded from nature (as was the philosophy of art at the Royal Academy) but rather from the imagination.
The poet-painter was a recluse and visionary who produced and published his own books of poems with engraved text and hand-colored illustrations. Although he never left England, he acquired a large repertory of Michelangelesque and Mannerist motifs from engravings. He also conceived a tremendous admiration for the Middle Ages and came closer than any other Romantic artists to reviving pre- Renaissance forms. These elements are present in Blake's memorable image of "The Ancient of Days" (1794). The muscular figure, radically foreshortened and fitted into a circle of light, is derived from Mannerist sources while the symbolic compasses come from medieval representations of the Lord as Architect of the Universe. "The Ancient of Days" stands for the power of reason, which the poet regarded as ultimately destructive, since it stifles vision and inspiration. To Blake, the "inner eye" was all-important; he felt no need to observe the visible world around him.
There has always been disagreement among critics concerning the stature and quality of Blake's art in both the visual and the literary fields. Almost ignored by his contemporaries, Blake has since been praised and is considered one of the most original geniuses England has ever produced. The great strength of his drawings comes from the luxuriant vigor of his visual imagination. But his execution does not always keep pace with his intentions. Often his draftsmanship is weak, and his individual figures are vapid and mannered.
Blake is primarily a line draftsman. This may be attributed to his training as an engraver, but it is also completely in accord with a widespread stylistic trend during the late 18th century.
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Artists Works:
after Blake, William
BLAKE
Blake, Jim
Blake, Peter
Blake, Peter
Blake, Peter
Blake, William
Blake, William
Blake, William
Blake, William
Blake, William
Blakelock, Marian
Blakelock, Ralph Albert
Ovard, Blake
Richardson, Blake
Richmond, Sir William Blake
Richmond, Sir William Blake
...more works by Blake, William
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Museum Resources:
Welcome to The Children's Museum of Memphis
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Commercial Resources:
Citiscapes-Art
Muskegon Museum of Art
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In the News:
Figurative Art at the End of the Century
Timeless Beauty: Representing the Ideal in Neoclassical Drawing
Drawing in the Present Tense
The Apocalypse
RUTH WEISBERG: CANTO V: A WHIRLWIND OF LOVERS
Parallel Perspectives: Early Twentieth Century American Art
THE BODY BEAUTIFUL: Artists Draw The Nude (1440-1850)
William Blake
Photography Against Itself: Contemporary
Photographs from the Museum Collection
A MIROUR POLISSHED BRYGHT: REFLECTIONS OF CHAUCER, 1400-2000
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Related Information:
Blake Archive
Blakeway Panoramas
CHRISIS Church of Art
ReNATssance Art
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