Ghost of a flea

William Blake is far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced. I feel both elated and embarrassed to say that, because in recent years the critical reputation of the poet, printmaker and radical prophet of the French revolutionary era has been slipping, to say the least. Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell are never likely to be shifted from their place near the heart of English literature. But Blake thought of himself as a visual artist; he illuminated his self-published writings, illustrated Dante and Chaucer, and painted singular oils such as The Ghost of a Flea.