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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