William Blake: Context (SOI SOE Introduction) Flashcards
Born…
28 November 1757, family of four boys and one girl. His younger brother Robert was the only one who played significance in his life, as he shared devotion to the arts.
Left ordinary school at age…
Age 10, to join a drawing school. Here he worked for five years, but, when the time came for an apprenticeship, Blake’s father was unable to afford the expense of his entrance to a painters studio. A premium of fifty guineas enabled him to enter the workshop of master engraver James Besire on 4 August 1772. Learnt the techniques of engraving for 7 years.
Having left school at age 10…
Some might think he neglected further general education, but his intellect developed early. He was a voracious reader age 12 and was writing poetry.
In 1783 his friends…
Paid for the poetical Sketches, a volume of verse written between the ages of twelve and twenty. .
Emerged for his apprenticeship…
In 1779, and enrolled in the Royal academy.
His art at the academy was…
Too unconventional and far too adventurous to be excepted in the late 18th century and early nineteenth. For this reason, Blake remained virtually unknown until Alexander Gilchrists biography was published in 1863, and he still was not fully accepted until his remarkably modernity and his imaginative force , both as poet and artist, were recognised in the twentieth century. We know he was unknown as a poet, as his obituary in the paper at the time listed him as a designer and illustrator, not as a poet.
As a virtually unknown poet, Blake…
Blake was obliged to earn a living for many years as a journey man engraver, making engraved book-illustrations from designs by his more conventional and successful contemporaries, such as Stothard, Flaxman and Fuseli.
On 18 August 1782 Blake married…
Catherine Boucher, the uneducated daughter or a market gardener. Lack of literacy did not prevent Mrs Blake from proving to be an ideal wife for Blake, learning to paint and draw until able to take part in his artistic output. Her only shortcoming was the inability to provide Blake with the children he would of liked.
Robert went to live…
At Blakes home after his fathers passing in 1784. From this point William trained Robert as an artist.
When William had developed a wide…
Wide understanding of poetry, philosophy and general literature, he attended social gatherings of intellectuals. To whom even he communicated his own poems sometimes singing them to tunes of his own composition.
In 1784, he wrote
A berlesque novel, know as ‘the island in the moon’ in which he ridiculed contemporary manners and conventions, not sparing himself. Te manuscript of this work and scattered amongst the absurdities has proved to contain poems afterwards known as songs of innocence.
Blake recognised that these poems…
Were better then their context, so in about 1788 began to assemble a collection of them fit to be made into a small volume.
Blake discovered poetry…
And design are the same thing in different forms. He was not content to see his poems only in a written form. He wanted to have them clothes and coloured so each poem-picture formed and artistic whole.
His brother Robert, fell…
Seriously ill, and in early 1787 had died. William is said to have nursed him so assiduously that he is said to have gone without sleep for a fortnight, and in his exhaustion, slept for 3 days and nights. At the moment of Roberts death, his visionary faculty enabled him to see the released spirit ascend heavenwards, ‘clapping his hands for joy’. For the rest of his life, Blake claimed to be able to contact his brothers spirit and gain strength from
His advice.
Blake became puzzled…
Over the problem of how to produce his poems in a fork that satisfied him. A friend of William recorded that Blake in his perplexity, saw his brother before him in one of his imaginative visions. (Is Blakes brother the child from ‘INTRODUCTION’ that instructs Blake to sing and write his poems down?) Roberts spirit instructed him on how he should proceed. He then began etching both poem and design in relief on a copper plate; perfecting this cost him endless labour, but it preserves his integrity as an artist.
