Organized with the Musée de la Vie Romantique, this exhibition brings together around 150 drawings, engravings, illuminations, books and watercolours by William Blake, on exceptional loan from the principal British museums.

Nearly two centuries after his death, William Blake is the most famous as well as the most secret of English geniuses. A poet, engraver and painter, the artist is famous for his illuminated manuscripts, which testify to his visionary eye. His books (in particular "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", 1790-1793) shocked prevailing sensibilities and turned the academic strictures of the time on their head, both as a result of their words and images.

Blake had a determining influence on the Pre-Raphaelites in the 19th century then on the modernity advocated by André Gide, André Breton and the Surrealists in the 20th century. His work is rich in a symbolism in which the fading embers of the Enlightenment glow, along with the secret alchemy of British society at a time of massive change.