Search instructions
View alphabetical lists of all artists currently featured on the site.
Select the initial of the artist's name that you are looking for. Scroll down the list until you find the name, and select it for more information about the artist and his or her work.
Search Tip
Artists are organised by their most commonly-used names. This is usually but not always their surname e.g. Leonardo da Vinci is under L, Van Gogh is under V and Raphael is under R.
William Blake (English, 1757 - 1827)
Blake's vivid paintings and prints illustrate his originality as an artist, poet and mystic philosopher. His early apprenticeship with the engraver James Basire introduced him to a wide range of art works through prints. Blake was fascinated by Michelangelo's figures and also by medieval Gothic art. He combined both in his own visionary scenes painted in watercolour and in his experimental prints combining words and images. He was a student, briefly, at the Royal Academy in London, but his unorthodox views were incompatible with contemporary academic practice. Most of his prolific output was made for a few sympathetic, loyal patrons.