William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy

William Blake (1757-1827) is a towering presence in British art and literature. Neglected during his lifetime, his visionary works in painting, print and watercolour have gone on to inspire generations and are now recognised as a unique contribution to world culture.
This exhibition would present a selection of his finest works from the Tate Collection, putting them in the context of a convulsive moment in British art, imagination and history. Blake lived through a period of revolution, when ideas about art and imagination were being radically transformed and when artists were pushing art into new, uncharted imaginative territories. ​

Blake’s enduring images will be shown with works by the artists who most inspired him, including Henry Fuseli, Benjamin West and John Hamilton Mortimer. Showing Blake in context, with the artists he admired and who were inspired by him, the exhibition will present a thrilling insight into a moment of extraordinary originality and innovation in British art.
​Each thematic section of the show will be centred upon a selection of key works by Blake with closely related works by other artists, into distinct groupings exposing a different dimension of the multi-faceted imagination of William Blake – Enchantments, Fantastical Creatures, Horror and Peril, The Gothic, Romanticising the Past, and Satan and the Underworld.​

This exhibition marks the third collaboration between La Reggia di Venaria with Tate, UK, following on from William Turner: Landscape of Mythology (2023) and John Constable: Landscapes of the soul (2022)