Search Results

Image 1 of 1

William Blake , artist
British, 1757 - 1827
Cover sheet: Illustrations of the Book of Job, 1825
Drypoint
20.9 x 16.3 cm (image)
Gift of George Hopper Fitch

Zoom this image

Artist Credit: all

Artist Biography: Engraver, etcher, lithographer, watercolorist, visionary poet. The son of a clothier, Blake demonstrated a marked artistic bent at a very young age, and at ten was sent to begin his studies at the Paris Academy in the Strand. At fourteen he was apprenticed to the fashionable engraver, Ryland, but spent the years 1771-1778 apprenticed to James Basire. Basire often sent Blake to copy the funerary sculptures of Westminster Abbey and the old churches of London - and it may be that the long hours spent in dimness and isolation greatly (and perhaps morbidly) enhanced his innate sympathy with the supernatural. On the termination of the seven-year apprenticeship, Blake studied for a short time at the newly-established Royal Academy. With the exeption of his brief period of study in Paris, Blake never went abroad, and had no contact with artistic life save that of Georgian London. He drew his inspiration from the most mystical of texts, including the Bible, Dante, Milton, and Ossian. The strangeness of his work has always made it difficult to clearly situate Blake in the history of art.

Related Keywords
Job Book the of Illustrations sheet Cover Fitch Hopper George Gift Europe England Print Drypoint lettering Hebrew floating angels page Title William Blake British 4157201200740010 A036309 AFGA