Blake Gardens

Born in London in November 1757 and buried almost seventy years later in August 1827 in an unmarked grave in the same city, Blake, although perhaps not appreciated by all of his peers at the time, has since been acclaimed as a seminal and significant figure both as a poet and an artist. Recognised today for his symbolic artwork and unorthodox approach to life, he was an early believer in free love and feminism and somewhat ironically his anti-industrialisation opus, Jerusalem, written as the preface to an epic poem, is regarded by many as a first choice alternative national anthem (the music was added over a century later by composer Hubert Parry).

Encouraged by his dissident parents at an early age to collect prints of Italian masters, he studied, after a seven years apprenticeship as an engraver, briefly, under Sir Joshua Reynolds at the Royal Academy, but he did not stay long. He became a fine engraver and would illustrate his own poetical outpourings, although it was through his art that he made his main, albeit limited, living. His diligent and faithful wife Catherine helped with the printing of his visionary, illuminated works, work that have won him great retrospective respect.

EH 10 March 2007