The British Romantic painter William Blake was born in 1757.
Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street in Soho, London. He became not only a painter but also a poet, printmaker, and innovative book artist. His work united words and images in illuminated books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, giving him an unusual place in the history of Romantic art and literature.
Blake received little conventional schooling and was largely educated at home after learning to read and write. He later trained as an engraver, a skill that shaped his distinctive approach to combining poetry, handwritten text, and colored imagery. Religious vision, political freedom, imagination, and the conflict between innocence and experience recur throughout his work.
A frequent error is to confuse Blake’s birth year with nearby dates in his career or with the dates of his major publications. He was born in 1757 and died in London in 1827. Although he was not widely recognized during his lifetime, later critics established him as one of the defining figures of the English Romantic age.