William Blake, Lamech and his Two Wives 1795. Tate.
17 rooms in Historic and Early Modern British Art
William Blake’s driving ambition was to be recognised as an artist of national importance. He created works of great originality and imagination
Born in Soho in 1757, Blake lived in London most of his life. This was a time of significant societal upheaval and global unrest, and his art often resonated with the rapidly changing world around him. Blake was politically radical, writing poetry that criticised empire, slavery and social inequality.
Blake trained as an engraver, relying on commissions from commercial publishers and a small group of patrons to make money. He was often employed to illustrate texts like the Bible or Dante’s Divine Comedy. Yet Blake wished to be recognised as an original artist. He aspired to paint grand public works and organised his own solo exhibition in 1809.
Regularly working late into the night, Blake pursued his own highly creative projects. He saw himself as a prophet, bridging spiritual and physical worlds through his art and poetry. He claimed to see visions which inspired his characters and personal mythology. His work also drew on his deep religious beliefs and personal struggles. To fully express his vivid imagination Blake devised new techniques in painting and printing. His wife Catherine was a vital support to him and assisted in colouring his works.
While widely celebrated today, Blake was little appreciated in his lifetime beyond a small circle of friends and patrons who admired his independent spirit and mystic persona. His reputation grew in the 19th and 20th centuries as his works circulated among artists and collectors. In recent decades, numerous artists and writers have drawn inspiration from Blake, reflecting his enduring legacy in Britain and around the world.
William Blake, Lamech and his Two Wives 1795
This work illustrates a Biblical scene from the Old Testament book of Genesis. Lamech, a descendant of Adam, confesses to his wives Adah and Zillah: ‘I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.’ Blake depicts the dead man sprawled face down, while Lamech stands beside him, passionately clutching at his hair. Adah and Zillah fearfully cling to one another. This is one of a series of 12 large colour prints Blake made using an experimental hybrid of printing, drawing, and painting. It was bought by Thomas Butts, one of Blake’s most important patrons.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, Dante and Virgil Approaching the Angel Who Guards the Entrance of Purgatory 1824–7
This watercolour shows a scene from Dante’s Divine Comedy. The poet Dante (in red) and his guide, the ancient Roman poet Virgil, approach the angel guarding the gates to purgatory. The three steps in polished white marble, dark stone and red rock represent sincerity, contrition and love. Blake uses evocative atmosphere to define each stage of Dante’s journey. Hell is claustrophobic, with ever-changing weather. Purgatory (seen here) is animated by the sun, moon and stars, an endless cycle of night and day. Paradise is flooded with light and bright colour.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, Dante in the Empyrean, Drinking at the River of Light 1824–7
In this scene from The Divine Comedy the poet Dante has reached paradise, where he is met by his dead beloved, Beatrice. In this infinite space of light, love and joy, Dante drinks from a river of light. Beatrice sits on the lower right. Blake has invented the two figures in the upper half of the work. They might represent the spiritual forms of Art and Nature, residing in eternity. While The Divine Comedy clearly sparked Blake’s imagination, Dante’s beliefs—especially his emphasis on sin and punishment—didn’t sit easily with his own. Blake was critical of organised religion and its restrictions on spiritual life.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, The Temple of Mirth, after Thomas Stothard 1784
In this print Blake depicts a personification of Mirth in her temple. Dressed in classical robes, Mirth sits in the centre with worshippers laughing and joking around her. The pictures and busts in the background depict comic characters and writers like Don Quixote and Laurence Sterne. It was made for The Wit’s Magazine, reproducing a design by the illustrator Thomas Stothard. He and Blake had been friends since their student days at the Royal Academy. Stothard helped Blake by recommending him for engraving work. Blake relied on commercial work throughout his life to support his own creative practice.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, First Book of Urizen pl. 6 1796, c.1818
In Blake’s personal mythology the figure of Los represents creativity and inspiration. Here, Los is depicted as a contorted figure, crying out in agony and wreathed in flames. This image originally appeared in Blake’s First Book of Urizen (1794), which re-imagines the Christian creation story. It was accompanied by the lines: ‘Los howld in a dismal stupor. Groaning! gnashing! groaning!’. Blake later reprinted this and other images from his illuminated books without text, opening them up to wider interpretation. Blake added new text to this image: ‘I sought Pleasure x found Pain’ and ‘Unutterable’.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, Winter c.1820–5
Blake personifies Winter as an old man, stepping forwards amidst swirling clouds. He carries a leafless branch like a ceremonial sceptre and a bird sits on his left shoulder. The painting illustrates lines from William Cowper’s poem The Task which describes Winter as ‘ruler of the inverted year’, his breath frozen on his lips and snow in his beard. It was commissioned by the Reverend John Johnson (Cowper’s cousin) as a decorative panel for the fireplace in his Norfolk rectory. The painting has faded and would originally have been bluer with more gold leaf.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, Every Man also Gave him a Piece of Money. Verso: God the Father with Attendant Angels c.1821–3
This unfinished watercolour shows a scene from the biblical story of Job, in which a man’s faith is tested by God. Job and his wife are shown after these trials, with their sympathetic family and friends bringing gifts on either side. Above them, God the Father appears in a swirling circle of clouds and angels. Blake began working on new watercolour and engraved illustrations to the Book of Job around 1821, using earlier images he had made as the basis for them. Here he seems to have been working out his ideas, but ultimately Blake chose not to use this design.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, The Serpent Attacking Buoso Donati. Verso: A Man with a Transparent Hood (?) over his Head 1824–7
Blake was inspired by the poet Dante, learning Italian to read his work. He made 102 watercolours illustrating Dante’s poem The Divine Comedy. The poem imagines the author’s spiritual journey through hell, purgatory and finally, paradise. Blake mostly depicted hell and its torments, such as the punishment depicted here. In a stark and stormy landscape, a thief is attacked by another in the guise of a serpent. The two are locked in eternal struggle, transforming between human and serpent forms. The blue and grey tones of the thief’s body suggest his human life draining away into coldness.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, The Crucifixion: ‘Behold Thy Mother’ c.1805
In this sombre watercolour Blake depicts a biblical scene from the New Testament. Christ commends his mother Mary to the care of his favourite disciple John. They both look up towards the cross, while the other figures weep in despair. This watercolour belongs to a larger series of biblical subjects Blake painted for his patron Thomas Butts. The dark, almost monochromatic colouring, stark symmetry and upright format are characteristic of Blake’s other representations of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The elongated forms and crisp drapery reflect the influence of medieval sculpture.
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artworks in William Blake
William Blake, The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan c.1805–9
After the Napoleonic Wars, Admiral Nelson became a celebrated national figure. Blake hoped to recreate this painting as a public monument ‘suitable to the grandeur of the nation’. Yet despite such patriotic claims, he portrays Nelson astride Leviathan, a Biblical serpent associated with chaos and the apocalypse. Figures representing the ‘Nations of the Earth’ are caught in Leviathan’s coils. The anonymous enslaved Black figure beneath Nelson’s feet acts as a dehumanising symbol of Nelson’s unrivalled imperial power. Blake opposed slavery and empire, but the painting is ambiguous: is Nelson shown as a hero or a villain?
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artworks in William Blake
Art in this room
William Blake
Lamech and his Two Wives
1795
William Blake
Dante and Virgil Approaching the Angel Who Guards the Entrance of Purgatory
1824–7
William Blake
Dante in the Empyrean, Drinking at the River of Light
1824–7
William Blake
The Temple of Mirth, after Thomas Stothard
1784
William Blake
First Book of Urizen pl. 6
1796, c.1818
William Blake
Winter
c.1820–5
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