William Blake (WILL-yum BLAKE)

William Blake was born in London during a time of social upheaval and industrial change, yet from a young age, he perceived the world not through material progress, but through visions. He claimed to see angels in trees, prophets in crowds, and celestial beings on the city streets. His parents, surprisingly tolerant of his mysticism, enrolled him in art school rather than suppress his gifts. Blake trained as an engraver and painter, learning the trades that would eventually support both his art and his radical imagination.   Blake’s work was unlike anything of his time. He composed poetry, created intricate illuminated books, and illustrated mythic visions that combined Christian mysticism, political revolution, and deeply personal cosmology. His most famous works—*Songs of Innocence and Experience*, *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell*, and the epic *Jerusalem*—are complex spiritual texts layered in symbolic language. He invented entire mythologies and archetypes to explore the tension between reason and imagination, freedom and repression, the material and the divine.   Though largely ignored or dismissed during his lifetime, Blake's work quietly influenced the Romantics and later exploded in relevance during the 20th century. He was a staunch critic of organized religion and industrialization, seeing both as systems that enslaved the soul. Yet his critique was always paired with an urgent call to awaken the divine imagination in every person. He lived in poverty for most of his life, supported by a small circle of patrons and fiercely loyal to his wife Catherine, who assisted him in printing and coloring his works by hand.   Today, William Blake is revered as one of the greatest artists and poets in English history. His visionary art and poetry continue to inspire mystics, revolutionaries, and creatives alike. Though called mad in his day, Blake saw further than most—into the soul of man, into the mythic landscape of Albion, and perhaps into realms only the godlings know by name.