William Blake

William Blake was an exceptional talent; he did not want to follow the fashions and norms of the official art academies of his time. He preferred drawing with clean lines, disliked the use of oil paint, which concealed a lack of precision, and worked enthusiastically with new materials he invented himself. In May 1809 he held an exhibition of his works. For most of the pieces he experimented with the paint himself; he added glue to his own version of egg tempera, used since the Middle Ages. The exhibition was not a success, and despite his faith in the new binder, some of Blake’s surviving paintings have not stood the test of time.

From the page of Newton