Abstract
Ford Madox Brown believed that William Blake was ‘the most imaginative artist who ever lived’; and ‘in the matter of genius [he was] second to none’. Here, Brown’s thinking was influenced by the version of Blake produced by his friend Alexander Gilchrist in The Life of William Blake (1863). Gilchrist’s Blake – experimental, radical and humanitarian – was attractive to many artists, designers and cultural critics throughout this period, and informed the views of members of the Pre-Raphaelite syndicate. This article includes a detailed reading of Chetham’s Life Dream (1885–6), which notes how Brown engages with imaginative freedom, cultural fellowship and human wholeness, key terms in the Blakean aesthetic advanced by members of the Pre-Raphaelite syndicate.
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