William Blake was born, 1757, in London, England, the third son of Catherine née Wright and James Blake, a hosier and haberdasher on Broad Street in Golden Square, Soho. The young William was prone to fantastic visions, claiming he had regular conversations with his deceased brother Robert. It was soon apparent that Blake’s imaginary world would be a prime motivator throughout his life. Noting something special in their son, the Blakes were highly supportive, encouraging him to pursue his artistic creativity.

By the age of 14, William's talent for drawing prompted his father to apprentice him to an engraver. His fame as an artist and engraver rests largely on a set of 21 copperplate etchings to illustrate the Book of Job in the Old Testament. However, he did much work for which other artists and engravers and of course, they received the credit.

As an artist, Blake studied the works of Raphael, Heemskerk, Dürer, and Michelangelo, all of whom would become important influences in the fantastic illustrations he created for his writings. He developed mythic creatures inspired by Greek and Roman mythology including Los, who represents the poetic imagination.

William Blake chose NOT to work in oils during a time when this was the most acceptable medium. Blake worked in a technique, which he, inaccurately, described as "fresco". It is a water-based medium more properly known as Tempera or Distemper. Unlike Egg Tempera where the egg is the medium, gouache or watercolor gum is used as the medium. His painting style was much like that of egg tempera and closely related to his engravings. He relied heavily on line drawing, developing a method allowing the underdrawing to show through. He also avoided heavy, opaque forms popular with his contemporaries. Because of the brittleness of the glue medium when dry, the final paint film was thin. The lightness of the ground formed the highlights and this was crucial to Blake's technique.

In 1782, Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher. Although they had no children it was mostly a happy marriage. They were a devoted couple and worked together on many of Blake’s publications. He had been writing poetry for quite some time and his first collection, Poetical Sketches, appeared in 1783. While Blake was busy with commissions he also undertook the task of creating the engravings that would illustrate his own poetry, printing them himself. He experimented with an early method of creating images and text on the same plate. He employed techniques for decorative margins and hand-colored the printed images, or printed with the color already on the wood or copper plate, the paint of which he mixed himself. This attention to the craft and details of each volume make no two of his works alike. He also illustrated works for other writers and poets.

Blake wrote many poems. Most were long, with flowing lines, violent energy, and combined with aphoristic clarity and moments of lyric tenderness. Blake was not blinded by conventions, but approached his subjects sincerely with a mind unclouded by current opinions. His approach also made him an outsider. He approved of free love and sympathized with the the French revolutionaries but the Reign of Terror sickened him. Most of his works were rooted in biblical scripture but they appear to be erotic and fantastical in nature.

In 1821 the Blakes moved to Fountain Court, Strand. There he finished his work on the Book of Job in 1825, commissioned by John Linnell. The following year he started a series of watercolors for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, which he worked on up to the day of his death, 1827.

William Blake was a poor businessman, and preferred to work on subjects of his own choice rather than on those that publishers assigned him. He lived in near poverty and died unrecognized but he exerted a profound impact on future poets, artists, writers, and musicians the world over. He is acclaimed as one of England's great figures of art and literature, as well as, one of the most original painters of his time.