PHOTOGRAPHS: TATE, PRIVATE COLLECTION, GETTY IMAGES, © TIM WALKER STUDIO17 4 | HARPER’S BAZAAR | October 2019 http://www.harpersbazaar.com/ukh e s p i r i t s a i d t o h i m , “ B l a k e b e a n a r t i s t & n o t h i n g e l s e ”.’
So wrote the diarist Henry Crabb Robinson in one of
the many faithful accounts he made of his conversa-
tions with William Blake. Evoking the lofty creative aspirations of
the great 18th-century poet, painter and printmaker, as well as his
supposed communion with a higher spiritual plane, this anecdote
has come to epitomise our view of Blake as a lone visionary, spurred
on solely by the power of his imagination.
Yet singular as Blake was in his devotion to ideals of artistic
freedom, he also depended on the assistance of
those around him to eke out a living. There was
his father James Blake, who encouraged him to
nurture his talent, not to mention giving him
money and shelter; his patrons, for whose
benevolence he was not always as grateful as he
might have been; and his beloved – and long-
suffering – wife Catherine Blake, who provided
him with emotional, domestic and practical
support. These characters all make an appearance in a new
exhibition at Tate Britain that will pay tribute to the vitality and
authenticity of Blake’s artworks, while offering an honest appraisal
of the conditions that made their creation possible. ‘As much as it is
a celebration of Blake’s mysticism and spirituality, it’s also about
bringing him down to earth,’ explains the curator Martin Myrone.By FRANCES HEDGES
B o r n i n 1757 a t a s h o p o n B r o a d ( n o w B r o a d w i c k) S t r e e t i n S o h o ,
where his father ran a hosiery and haberdashery business, Blake
enjoyed a happy childhood without any formal schooling, instead
attending drawing classes from the age of 10. There were early signs
that Blake was no ordinary child: legend has it that, while roaming
around Peckham Rye Common, he saw a vision of a ‘tree filled with
angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars’.
Still, he was sufficiently level-headed to complete his apprenticeship
with the engraver James Basire and, aged 21, to enrol in the Royal
A c a d e m y, t h e n b a s e d a t S o m e r s e t H o u s e. T h o u g h
the teaching at the school was, in those days,
rather lax, the experience was formative in
inspiring Blake’s ambition to become a great
modern painter, as well as introducing him to the
anatomical drawings of artists such as Albrecht
Dürer and Michelangelo, who were to be impor-
tant influences.
It was also around this time that Blake met and
fell in love with a working-class girl called Catherine Boucher,
whom he married in 1782 after a year-long courtship. Illiterate at the
time, Catherine signed their wedding certificate with an ‘X’, but
under Blake’s tutelage she learnt not only to read and write, but also
to support her husband’s creative endeavours, operating the press
for his illuminated books and hand-finishing them in watercolour.A SH A R E D V ISION
ART
T
Tate Britain’s new exhibition dedicated to William Blake celebrates the
role of his devoted wife Catherine in fulfilling his artistic ambitions
‘Oberon, Titania and
Puck with Fairies
Dancing’ (about 1786)
by William Blake.
Below: the artist’s sketch
of himself and his wife
Catherine (about 1800)