English poet-painter William Blake, a reclusive and visionary artist, produced and published his own books with engraved texts and hand-colored illustrations.

Themes of obscure religious and mythical stories and man's quest for the divine permeate all of Blake's writings and paintings while elements of Michalangelo and the Mannerist school and pre-Rennaissance book illuminations are evident in the content of his work.

Blake had no use for the visible world around us, relying on his own "inner vision" and inspiration, denying reason as being ultimately destructive to this own "inner vision".