William Blake

William Blake is said to be a very visual artist and in his visions, is where he got all of his ideas. In this essay I’m going to explore some of Blake’s works and the visions that caused him to write about some of the things that he wrote about.

William Blake, born November 28, 1757, grew up as the son of a haberdasher, Blake, with close to zero education in a London suburb due to having a bad temper. He taught himself everything that he knew. From the ages of 0 to 14, he taught himself how to read and he had read many of Milton’s pieces, the Bible, and some of Shakespeare’s work. He also taught himself Latin (Norton 65). During his free time since he didn’t attend school, he spent this time in a print shop. He spent his pocket money for engravings of different Italian Masters. All of this freedom that he had helped him to gather impressions and sensations from the world that helped him with his drawings until he died. Later in his life he decided on apprenticing as an engraver instead of becoming an artist, even though he was a friend of many of the great artists. He worked as an apprentice for a well-known engraver. His engraving skills that he learned helped him with his craftsmanship, and a higher branch of art (Raine 9-10).

Blake married an illiterate woman at the age of twenty-four, named Catherine. He decided on courting her in Battersea, and the church where they were married is the only church still standing to this very day (Raine 7). Blake encountered many hardships in his life including being arrested for making slanderous statements about different things. All of the events that Blake endured in his life had a great influence on his masterful writings and drawings. It was once said that Blake and his wife were so poor, that his wife would lay an empty plate in front of him at dinner because they didn’t have anything at all to eat, and this made Blake start drawing pictures of what he wished was on his plate. One task that he was assigned was to draw many of the monuments of kings and queens in Westminster Abbey.

When Blake was young he had many different visions that also caused him to start drawing these visions on the flaps of his dad’s books.