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British
poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver,
who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake
proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination
over the rationalism and materialism of the
18th- century. He joined for a time the Swedenborgian
Church of the New Jerusalem in London and considered
Newtonian science to be superstitious nonsense.
Misunderstanding shadowed his career as a writer
and artist and it was left to later generations
to recognize his importance. Blake's last years
were passed in obscurity, quarreling even with
some of the circle of friends who supported
him.
Among Blake's later artistic works are drawings
and engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy and
the 21 illustrations to the book of Job, which
was completed when he was almost 70 years old.
Blake never shook off the poverty, in large
part due to his inability to compete in the
highly competitive field of engraving and his
expensive invention that enabled him to design
illustrations and print words at the same time.
Independent through his life, Blake left no
debts at his death on August 12, 1827. He was
buried in an unmarked grave at the public cemetery
of Bunhill Fields. Blake's influence grew through
Pre-Raphealites and W.B. Yeats especially in
Britain. His interest in legend was revived
with the Romantics' rediscovery of the past,
especially the Gothic and medieval. In the 1960s
Blake's work was acclaimed by the Underground
movement.
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