William blake book biography of oprah
Home / General Biography Information / William blake book biography of oprah
His disdain for war and tyranny also permeated many of his works, which often included sharp critiques of kings and oppressive systems. He described himself as a “divine child” and believed his work was meant not for the average person but for children and angels, reflecting his deep sense of connection to the spiritual realm.
While he argues that Blake was often caught up in hallucinatory waking visions, Ackroyd weighs against any diagnosis of mental illness the justice of Blake's claim that he was gifted to see through and beyond the insane upheavals of his times.
Later in life, Blake was lionized by the Pre-Raphaelites for his painting.
Encouraged by his parents, he attended Henry Pars’s Drawing School at the age of ten and later apprenticed with the engraver James Basire. He captures the difficulties that the radical Blake faced in squaring his art training at the prestigious Royal Academy with his humble artisanal background.
William Blake: His Life, Character, and Genius
This book is a definitive biography of William Blake, one of the most visionary and influential poets and artists of the Romantic era.
Yet rather than spread his multifacteed genius through diverse pursuits, Blake concentrated it into his homemade books—famous now, but noted in his day only as oddities. Each copy of the book was uniquely hand-illustrated and colored, often with the help of his wife, Catherine Boucher.
One of Blake’s most famous creations is Songs of Innocence and Experience, a collection of poems exploring themes of purity and corruption.
Not the least part of Ackroyd's accomplishment is to have limited himself to 416 pages—enough, and (to paraphrase Blake), assuredly not too much. Scholar, workaday artisan, mystic, and social critic, Blake (17571827) excelled at poetry, engraving, and painting. The blunt, ``gothic,'' outline forms of Raphael and DÅrer, out of fashion at the time, provided Blake with an alternative tradition with which to affiliate himself; such contemporaries as John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli provided moral support.
For these sui generis productions, Blake printed pages where script and illustration flow side by side: now commenting on this world, now offering visions of others. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of literature and art in the 18th and 19th centuries.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.
Catherine was an essential collaborator in his creative process, working alongside him for over forty-five years to print and color his works. Without her contributions, much of his art might never have reached the public.
Blake lived and worked in London, drawing inspiration from the bustling city around him. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
About William Blake (cont'):
Born in London in 1757, Blake showed an early talent for art.
Novelist and biographer Ackroyd (The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, 1995; Dickens, 1991; etc.) again shows himself to be an adept literary critic and historian: His explications of many of Blake's works, from widely known lyrics like ``The Tyger'' to hermetic epics like ``The Four Zoas,'' unfold into detailed panoramas of England as Blake knew it.
Above all, Ackroyd stresses Blake's intimate relation to his London environs and to the crises of war and industrialization that beset Britain during his life.