William Blake: Identity and Nationhood

The Napoleonic Wars send shockwaves across Europe. As the carnage continues, hope for a better future is squashed by political turmoil, social upheaval and industrial change. With this comes the first murmurings of Romanticism in art – an emphasis on emotion and individualism. As seeds grow in England and Spain, over the next two weeks we’ll review both William Blake and Francisco Goya as they desperately try to find a new reality through art.

This week, William Blake. We remember him as a visionary, a man who lived in a parallel universe to our own. But the more we dive into his output, the more we see he was a man of his time. A reformer on every level – socially, politically, spiritually and artistically. He spent a lifetime fighting for what he believed was a better future - and his chief weapon was the arts.