William blake life and works
•
William Blake
English poet and artist (–)
For other people named William Blake, see William Blake (disambiguation).
William Blake (28 November – 12 August ) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his "prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[2] While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham,[3] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God",[4] or "human existence itself".[5]
Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity, and
•
The Life and Works of William Blake
William Blake ()
Tekst/illustrasjoner:
Brigid McCauley/
Faglig konsulent:
Geir Uthaug
Filosofiske spørsmål:
Brigid McCauley og Øyvind Olsholt
Sist oppdatert: februar
William Blake is today recognised as a highly original and important poet in English literature, as well as a revolutionary and visionary artist. This, however, was not the case at the time of his death in , for Blake was also an individualist to the point of being isolated from society, and refused to compromise when it came to matters of personal and spiritual freedom for everyone. Indeed, the few obituaries that were written at the time focused more on the man's eccentric behaviour than on his artistic and literary achievements and it took many years before Blake&#;s contribution to art, literature and psychology was properly acknowledged as truly original and groundbreaking.
A life devoted to art
William Blake was born in London in ,
•
William Blake ( - )
Portrait of William Blake by Thomas Phillips ©Considered insane and largely disregarded by his peers, the visionary poet and engraver William Blake is now recognised among the greatest contributors to English literature and art.
He was born in Soho, London, where he lived most of his life, and was son to a hosier and his wife, both Dissenters. Blake's early ambitions lay not with poetry but with painting and at the age of 14, after attending drawing school, he was apprenticed to James Basire, engraver. After his seven-year begrepp was complete, Blake studied at the Royal Academy, but he is known to have questioned the aesthetic doctrines of its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his stay there was brief. It nonetheless afforded him friendships with John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli, academics whose work may have influenced him.
In , he set up a print shop, but within a few years the business floundered and for the rest of his life Blake eked out a living as