Give a brief Life-Sketch of WILLIAM BLAKE.

Ans.

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

William Blake, a mystic, poet, and artist, was born in London on November 28, 1757. His father was a hosier, living at 28, Broad Street, Golden Square. The family consisted of four sons and a daughter, William being the second son, and the only one to achieve distinction. The eldest, James, succeeded his father in this hosiery business. The third, John, died young after leading a dissolute life. The youngest, Robert, who showed considerable capabilities as an artist was greatly loved by William, and was nursed by him through the illness of which he died at the age of 21. Another boy, Richard, died in infancy.

William showed his artistic tastes at an early age. At the age of ten he was sent to a drawing school in the Strand. At fifteen he was apprenticed to be an engraver. He also made drawings of the monuments in Westminster Abbey. He was greatly influenced by the Gothic style. His creative faculty found an outlet in the early years in poetry, some of which survived in the thin volume of Poetical Sketches, printed for him by his friends in 1983. These pieces were composed between his 12th and 20th years. In 1979, Blake set to earn his living as a professional engraver. He did a lot of work in this line for the booksellers and publishers. During the next twenty years or so he supported himself largely by this means. In 1781, Blake met Catherine Boucher, the illiterate daughter of a market-gardener, and married her in August 1782. She made a perfect wife for him. She learned to draw and paint well enough to be able to help him in his work. She remained childless, and survived him by four years, dying in 1831.

In 1809, Blake held an exhibition of his works at the house of his brother James in Broad Street, Golden Square. Sixteen pictures were exhibited, including his large painting of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, and each visitor to the house received for his entrance to the house a copy of the now celebrated “Descriptive Catalogue”.

Blake suffered from the defects of his qualities. His mind was never systematically cultivated. His qualities isolated him from his contemporaries and drove his mind upon itself, so that the interpretation of his message to mankind cannot be made with accuracy. But through all his mental turmoil and difficulties in dealings with his fellow men he preserved his intellectual integrity, and he never prostituted his art. Throughout his life he tried to exalt the things of the mind, and for him the imagination was man’s highest faculty. Ceaselessly he fought against materialism. He was deeply religious, though in no conventional sense. In his later years Christ became identified in his mind with Art, and this fact provides many clues for the understanding of his doctrines.