Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims

1780–1808

Exhibits six times at the Royal Academy

Despite his antagonism towards Reynolds, Blake submitted works to the Royal Academy on six occasions between 1780 and 1808.

ottobre 1803 – 1820 · Residenza

South Molton Street

c. 1808

Polemical annotations to Reynolds's “Discourses”

Around 1808 Blake gave vigorous expression to his views on art in an extensive series of polemical annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's “Discourses”, denouncing the Royal Academy as a fraud and proclaiming that to generalise is to be an idiot.

1809

An exhibition in his brother's shop: nothing sold

Blake set up an independent exhibition in his brother's haberdashery shop at 27 Broad Street in Soho to market his version of “The Canterbury Pilgrims” along with other works. It was very poorly attended, sold none of the temperas or watercolours, and its only review, in The Examiner, was hostile.

1809

The “Descriptive Catalogue”: an analysis of Chaucer

For the exhibition Blake wrote his “Descriptive Catalogue” (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt called a “brilliant analysis” of Chaucer and is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism; it also contains detailed explanations of his other paintings.