ENG 28100: Romantic Victorian Literature
William Blake 1757-1827
Virtual Tours & Exhibitions
William Blake at the Morgan
William Blake's World: "A New Heaven Is Begun":
William Blake (1757–1827) occupies a unique place in the history of Western art. His creativity included both the visual and literary arts. In his lifetime he was best known as an engraver; now he is also recognized for his innovative poetry, printmaking, and painting. Blake's keen perception of the political and social climate found expression throughout his work. His strong sense of independence is evident in the complex mythology that he constructed in response to the age of revolution.
William Blake's Cottage, Virtual Tour:
This virtual tour allows the visitor to explore the garden and interior of the cottage in Felpham, West Sussex, where William and Catherine Blake lived between the Septembers of 1800 and 1803. Use the floating angel to navigate from room to room, the information buttons to retrieve labels about the artwork.
William Blake Exhibit at Tate Britain:
Inside the exhibition is an immersive recreation of the small domestic room in which Blake showed his art in 1809. You can experience for yourself the impact these works had when they were shown for the first time. In another room, Blake’s dream of showing his works at enormous scale is made reality using digital technology.
William Blake in the Desolate Market by
His brilliant achievements as a poet, painter, and engraver brought him public notice, but little income. William Blake in the Desolate Market records how Blake, the most original of all the major English poets, earned his living. G.E. Bentley Jr, the dean of Blake scholars, details the poet's occupations as a commercial engraver, print-seller, teacher, copperplate printer, painter, publisher, and vendor of his own books. In his early career as a commercial engraver, Blake was modestly prosperous, but thereafter his fortunes declined. For his most ambitious commercial designs, he made hundreds of folio designs and scores of engravings, but was paid scarcely more than twenty pounds for two or three years' work. His invention of illuminated printing lost money, and many of his greatest works, such as Jerusalem, were left unsold at his death. He came to believe that his "business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes." William Blake in the Desolate Market is an investigation of Blake's labours to support himself by his arts. The changing prices of his works, his costs and receipts, as well as his patrons and employers are expertly gathered and displayed to show the material side of the artistic career in Britain's Romantic period.
Call Number: onlineISBN: 9780773543065Publication Date: 2014
Big Blake Project
Virtually visit Blake's lodgings and haunts.
