Page:Dictionary of Artists of the English School (1878).djvu/65



BLAKE, Miss C. J., amateur. She etched a careful portrait of her uncle, Sir Francis Blake Delaval, which is dated 1775.

BLAKE, B., still-life painter. His name first appears in 1807, when he exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was then lodging in London, probably in his student days, and his work was 'The Portrait of an Artist.' In the following year he exhibited a 'Last Judgment,' not necessarily a sacred subject, and a 'View near Dunford, Salisbury.' He did not exhibit again till 1818, and then contributed another view of Dunford, where he was at the time living. In 1812 he was lodging in Westminster, and exhibited another view of the same village and a landscape with figures, and from that time occasionally exhibited landscape subjects till 1821, when he sent 'Dead Game,' and only once more exhibited at the Academy. He was, in 1824, one of the foundation members of the Society of British Artists, and up to 1830 exhibited, usually 'Dead Game,' with the Society. His works were minutely and carefully painted, but hot and monotonous in colour. He was pressed with difficulties, lived in obscurity, and most of his works were painted for the dealers. He made some skilful copies of the Dutch masters, which would mislead an unwary connoisseur. He died about 1830.

BLAKE,, engraver, painter, and poet. Born in Broad Street, Golden Square, London, November 28, 1757. His father was a respectable hosier, and carried on his business there for 20 years. He was a strange dreamy boy, who took to wandering away to the fields and country lanes, and was fond of resorting to the picture sales by Langford in Covent Garden. When only 10 years of age he was sent to Pars's school to learn drawing. At 12 he was a poet, and has left verses written at 14, which have merit. Then it was determined that the young genius should be an engraver, and he was apprenticed to James Basire, the second and most talented of the name, and was sent to make drawings for his master from the antiquities in Westminster Abbey, and in the old edifice nourished his dreamy fancies. From 1779 to 1782, and onwards, he was employed engraving book illustrations, some from his own designs, but chiefly after Stothard, R.A. In 1783 he married, and the same year, assisted by his young friend Flaxman, he printed, in 74 pages, his 'Poetical Sketches,' some of which possess much sweetness; yet on the death of his father, in 1784, we find that, stimulated by the necessities of life, he opened a shop as printseller and engraver with James Parker, who was his fellow-apprentice.

His shop was not a profitable undertaking, for having, in 1788, completed the first part of another poem, 'The Songs of Innocence,' he was without the means to publish it, and we are now first told of his visions. His thoughts were filled with this printing difficulty, when in the night his dead brother Robert stood before him, and revealed to him a process, which he adopted, spending for the materials half the few pence he possessed. This revealed process was not very recondite, and simply consisted in leaving in relief, by means of nitric acid, the letters written on a copper plate, so tnat they might be printed by a copper-plate printing-press, though the result was a very blurred, blotted work. By this original process, however, he multiplied the copies of his illustrated poem, and with the help of his wife, truly a helpmate, the songs were printed, tinted, and stitched into a book of 27 pages, and their occasional sale found the means of subsistence for the contented couple. This work was followed by the 'Books of Prophecy,' produced in the same manner. He contributed some few works to the Academy Exhibitions—in 1780, 'The Death of Earl Godwin;' in 1784, 'A Breach in a City the Morning after Battle;' and 'War unchained by an Angel: Fire, Pestilence, and Famine;' in 1785, three subjects from the history of Joseph; in 1799, 'The Last Supper;' and in 1808, 'Jacob's Dream' and 'Christ guarded in the Sepulchre by Angels.' In 1793 Blake removed to Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, and in the same year published his 'Gates of Paradise,' a small book for children, and the next year the 'Songs of Experience,' a sequel to the 'Songs of Innocence,' the two comprising 54 engraved plates; and 'America, a Prophecy;' followed by 'Europe, a Prophecy.' Resuming his graver, in 1797 he commenced an illustrated edition of 'Young's Night Thoughts,' of which every page was a design, but he only published one number containing 43 plates.

In 1800 a new life opened to Blake; he was induced by Hayley, the poet, who became known to him through the instrumentality of Flaxman, to come and live near him at Felpham, a small village on the Sussex coast; and here for a time he was happy, indulging in dreamy rambles, assisting Hayley as his 'illustrator,' and painting a few portraits. But Hayley's projects had no success, and his society became burdensome. Blake had at this time a vexatious quarrel with a soldier who trespassed upon his premises, and from some angry words he used, was charged with sedition, and tried at the Quarter Sessions, where the charge could not be

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