William Blake

English poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757-1827) was a visionary artist who claimed to receive divine inspiration from "Messengers from Heaven Daily & Nightly." Largely unrecognized in his lifetime, he's now considered a seminal figure of the Romantic Age. Born in London to a hosier, he experienced visions from childhood, reportedly seeing angels in a tree at age four. He trained as an engraver and developed a unique technique of "illuminated printing" combining text and image.

Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) remains his most celebrated work, exploring "the two contrary states of the human soul" through poems like "The Lamb" and "The Tyger." He etched, printed, and hand-colored each copy with his wife Catherine. His prophetic books, including Milton and Jerusalem, created a personal mythology exploring spirituality and social critique. The "Jerusalem" lyric became a kind of second national anthem in Britain. Though dismissed as mad by contemporaries, he profoundly influenced the Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison. His works hang at the Tate Britain, which holds the world's largest Blake collection.