This is part two of William Blake - part one can be found on Great Art Explained.
The link is below.
The English artist and poet William Blake was 32 years old when the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison, signaling the start of the French Revolution.
Shock waves were felt across the whole of Europe.
For Blake, the Revolution was a powerful source of inspiration.
Within a few years, energised by dreams of freedom and Revolution, Blake had quickly produced several of his most significant Works, including Songs of Innocence and of experience.
This deceptively simple collection, appears at first glance as if it was written for children, and nothing more than a collection of nursery rhymes.
But hidden within these unassuming poems, are radical ideas.
In them, Blake Reveals His passionate hatred for Authority - as well as his contempt for the church and the monarchy, and he expresses his deeply held belief in one of the key values of the French Revolution... Liberty.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, was written in two parts, intending to show the two contrary states of the human soul.
