Incapable of compromise

Big date for Bohemians next month: 28 November marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Blake whose memory is honoured by every moth-eaten visionary, every babbling poet and every garret-bound artist flinging paint at a canvas. Nowadays, Blake’s eminence is universally accepted but the great mystery of his career is that his achievements, as both illustrator and poet, made such a feeble impression on his contemporaries.

It didn’t help that he was widely thought mad. And he complained throughout his life of a ‘Nervous Fear’ that made him uneasy in company. Because of his visions his behaviour was often weird. He thought nothing of breaking off a conversation to address the spirit of Lucifer, Moses or Julius Caesar who had just shimmied in through an upstairs window. (And though Blake was indifferent to earthly pedigree, his spiritual callers tended to be of the highest standing: he was rarely visited by a cherub below the rank of Archangel.) He lacked the material ambition of an artistic man-about-town. Having married a maid he lived in a few simple rooms and kept no servants. Hardly the style to propel him up the social ladder. He exhibited sporadically at the Royal Academy but was never invited to join. Instead he made a living as a jobbing engraver, supplementing his income with gifts from patrons.

Blake blamed everyone but himself for his failure. The fact is he had atrocious commercial judgment. You only have to look at his beautiful early lyrics, ‘Songs of Innocence & of Experience’, to see why they didn’t sell. Blake was determined to exhibit his graphic and lyrical skills side by side when they’re best appreciated separately.