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The twelve large colour prints of William Blake: a study on techniques, materials and context
No full textThe aim of this thesis is to study in entirety the group of large colour prints which William Blake made between 1795 and 1805. The series of prints represents the single most important and complete development of Blake’s skill as an innovative printmaker. Although they include some of Blake’s best-known images, they have not been studied before in their entirety or from the point of view of analysing the techniques and methods Blake had used. My study will show how Blake executed these truly impressive prints in terms of materials, method and motives. The first half of the thesis deals with the materialistic aspects of Blake’s colour printing. In chapter one tracing the controversial two-pull discussion to the root, I will make clear the focus points as well as revealing the early tradition of experimental criticism on Blake’s colour printing method. Focusing on two important critics, W. Graham Robertson and Ruthven Todd, and the periods they lived, I attempt to reveal the role they played in a wider context. Also I show how the tradition of Blake’s art was inherited directly through the Ancients to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which leads to Robertson and Todd. In the second chapter I deal with the development of Blake’s colour printing experiments. It is obvious that the Twelve Large Colour Prints were produced as a result of Blake’s series of colour printing experiments, starting with monocolour simple prints, going through the illuminated books progressing with more colours and higher skills
Faith, feeling and gender in the writing of Hartley, Wollstonecraft and Blake
Full text linkThis thesis examines David Hartley’s Observations on Man (1749) and elucidates how Hartley’s mechanical approach to mind, his conception of emotion, and the religious status he awards the body were newly relevant after 1791. In this way it identifies a ‘Hartlean culture’ within the Romantic period and seeks to explore how such an intellectual climate influenced the radical writers William Blake (1757–1827) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797). Blake and Wollstonecraft were acquainted with the famous bookseller Joseph Johnson, who republished Observations on Man in various forms and versions between 1775 and 1801. They also had an association with Johnson’s circle; the Hartlean concepts found throughout their work evidence Hartley’s latent popularity within intellectual culture, as well as the writers’ engagement with contemporary philosophical ideas. I propose that the renewed curiosity in Hartley during the 1790s reveals a specific religious and revolutionary culture wherein non-conformist views about Christianity and new ideas about the body, emotion and women flourished. Such a cultural moment renders Hartley a particularly important figure for debate since he integrated progressive values about equality and faith alongside advancing understanding of anatomy and mind. Hartley identified how God and happiness could be found physically within each person. He did this by combining a complex theory of vibrations and theory of association, where the body and mind functioned mechanically through a person’s feelings of pleasure and pain. These feelings manifested as physical vibrations and eventually led every person to desire goodness until finally, they can become ‘Godlike’ themselves. Hartley’s amalgamation of Christian and new theoretical concepts appealed to Blake and Wollstonecraft, and was much unlike the approach of Joseph Priestley who abridged Observations in 1775 to promote a wholly ‘scientific’ text. In this way, we can see resonances between Hartley, Blake and Wollstonecraft, even if they existed in different cultural contexts. In rethinking Blake and Wollstonecraft through Hartley, I offer new insights into their feminism. In particular I attend to how Hartlean culture enabled these writers to re-imagine gender and emotion: Wollstonecraft reinstates the female experience back into Hartlean concepts in order to promote women’s emotional potential and what she understands as the special power of the female-female bond. Blake responds to both Wollstonecraft and Hartley with his elevation of the feminine, one that envisions new potential for both sexes, emotionally and spiritually. In both cases, the writers share a fascination for the image of the female saviour, and they use terminology and concepts found in Hartley’s work to communicate their views. In being attentive to the shared vocabulary and ideas of these three writers’ works, this thesis highlights the importance of David Hartley and Hartlean culture for the field of Romantic Studies. It also illuminates Observations on Man as a vital contribution to the intellectual context of the 1790s
Job’s Gethsemane: tradition and imagination in William Blake’s illustrations for the book of job
Full text linkBlake created two versions of his Illustrations of the Book of Job, and it is now agreed that about twenty years separates his first watercolour series and the final engraved set of plates. The first chapter is biographical and technical: it establishes that the Butts series of water-colours was the product of the tumultuous and creative years 1805-10, following a time wh6n Blake experienced a strong sense of vision and Christian regeneration; whereas the engraved set was produced 1821-1826, at the end of his life. It also reviews all Blake's treatments of the Job theme. The friends-turned-accusers seem to have been a central pre-occupation. Blake's illustrations contain important elements which are not found in the Old Testament text. I have followed Bo Lindberg's principle that explanation should be sought in the artistic tradition, and in the work itself The second chapter concentrates on the tradition available to Blake, following and supplementing Lindberg's examination of the influence of the apocryphal Testament of Job, and of the artistic tradition of seeing Job as alter Christus and as Christian. Chapters three to five, interpreting Blake's imaginative use of this material, are new both in focussing on the Butts set, and in exploring the importance to Blake of St.Teresa, Fenelon, Mme. Guyon, Hervey and other people of prayer. Also discussed are Joseph Hallett's radical biblical commentary, of which Blake owned a copy, variant proofs discovered by Robert Essick of the first and last engraved plates, and the thirteenth century Job wall- paintings discovered in 1800 in St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. Blake's Job was unique in the corpus of his work. Previous studies have followed Wicksteed in concentrating on the engraved set, and no one has explored the implications of the earlier dating now agreed for the watercolour series. The thesis is essentially concerned with Blake's Christocentric theme, and Job's inner journey of prayer, in these illustrations. Conclusions drawn differ substantially from Wicksteed's
A Hundred Years of Photo Wallets:Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration's Book of the Month
Full text linkAn interview with Annebella Pollen, author of More Than a Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets, which was selected as the May 2023 Book of the Month by the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration
Dr. Holly Blake and Dr. Melissa Ooten - Faculty Author Interview
No full textDr. Holly Blake, Director of the WILL* program and Associate Dean for Outreach Education and Development, and Dr. Melissa Ooten, Associate Director of the WILL* Program and gender research specialist, discuss their new book, Audacious Voices: Profiles in Intersectional Feminism, published recently by She Writes Press. The book is a collection of twelve stories from WILL* alums. WILL* is a nationally recognized program for students interested in exploring gender through an intersectional lens, both in and out of the classroom. Students strengthen their leadership skills as they actively work to create a more equitable world
A Hundred Years of Photo Wallets:Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration's Book of the Month
Full text linkAn interview with Annebella Pollen, author of More Than a Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets, which was selected as the May 2023 Book of the Month by the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration
William Blake on Self and Soul /
No full textIt has been clear from the beginning that William Blake was both a political radical and a radical psychologist, and in William Blake on Self and Soul Laura Quinney uses her sensitive, surprising readings of the poet to reveal his innovative ideas about the experience of subjectivity.It has been clear from the beginning that William Blake was both a political radical and a radical psychologist, and in William Blake on Self and Soul Laura Quinney uses her sensitive, surprising readings of the poet to reveal his innovative ideas about the experience of subjectivity.Electronic reproduction.Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher’s Web site, viewed October 27 2015
Beastly Blake [electronic resource] /
No full textBlake’s ‘Human Form Divine’ has long commanded the spotlight. Beastly Blake shifts focus to the non-human creatures who populate Blake’s poetry and designs. The author of ‘The Tyger’ and ‘The Lamb’ was equally struck by the ‘beastliness’ and the beauty of the animal kingdom, the utter otherness of animal subjectivity and the meaningful relationships between humans and other creatures. ‘Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night & day’, Blake fathomed how much they have to teach us about creation and eternity. This collection ranges from real animals in Blake’s surroundings, to symbolic creatures in his mythology, to animal presences in his illustrations of Virgil, Dante, Hayley, and Stedman. It makes a third to follow Queer Blake and Sexy Blake in irreverently illuminating blind spots in Blake criticism. Beastly Blake will reward lovers of Blake’s writing and visual art, as well as those interested in Romanticism and animal studies.1. Introduction: ‘Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom’: Helen P. Bruder and Tristanne Connolly -- 2. Blake’s ‘Horses of Instruction’: Kurt Fosso -- 3. Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ as / in Radical Animal Politics c. 1800: Anne Milne -- 4. In the Company of Wolves: Blake’s Lyca Poems as Political Fable: Elizabeth Effinger -- 5. Apocalyptic Visions, Heroism, and Intersections of the Human and ‘the Not Human’ in Blake’s Milton: Diane Piccitto -- 6. Blake as Shaman: The Neuroscience of Hallucinations and Milton’s Lark: David Worrall -- 7. Bestial Metamorphoses: Blake’s Variations on Trans-human Change in Dante’s Hell: Luisa Calè -- 8. ‘How sweet is the Shepherds sweet lot’?: Sheep in Blake’s Designs: Hayley Flynn -- 9. ‘Train of Elephants’: Blake’s (Un)tamed Beasts and Hayley’s Animal Ballads: Mark Crosby -- 10. From Vampire to Apollo: William Blake’s Ghosts of the Flea (c. 1819-20): Sibylle Erle -- 11. News from the Thames (Blake! There’s Something in the Water): Bethan Stevens.Blake’s ‘Human Form Divine’ has long commanded the spotlight. Beastly Blake shifts focus to the non-human creatures who populate Blake’s poetry and designs. The author of ‘The Tyger’ and ‘The Lamb’ was equally struck by the ‘beastliness’ and the beauty of the animal kingdom, the utter otherness of animal subjectivity and the meaningful relationships between humans and other creatures. ‘Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night & day’, Blake fathomed how much they have to teach us about creation and eternity. This collection ranges from real animals in Blake’s surroundings, to symbolic creatures in his mythology, to animal presences in his illustrations of Virgil, Dante, Hayley, and Stedman. It makes a third to follow Queer Blake and Sexy Blake in irreverently illuminating blind spots in Blake criticism. Beastly Blake will reward lovers of Blake’s writing and visual art, as well as those interested in Romanticism and animal studies
Belle, Books, and Ballot: The Life and Writing of Nineteenth-Century Reformer Lillie Devereux Blake (1833-1913)
Full text linkThis blog series focused on American women writers, a partnership between The Society for the Study of American Women Writers and U.S. Studies Online, explores the field through several lenses that range from recovery to religion and from war to transnationalism. By no means comprehensive in scope, this series of nine posts by SSAWW members offers snapshots into the field and its on-going conversations. Ana Stevenson, author of the third post in the series, focuses on the lesser-known author and activist Lillie Devereux Blake to introduce her life and work as an exemplary, albeit largely forgotten, nineteenth-century reformer
Fables by John Gay with a Life of the Author, and embellished with Seventy Plates, Vol. I
No full textAh, I have made my way back to a Stockdale 1793 edition of Gay's fables! Bodemann 110.10, Fabula Docet #99. I had worked earlier with the Rivington imitation of the same year (Hobbs #24), and it is a pleasure now to see the original. The combination of good paper and excellent printing gives these engravings a three-dimensional quality, experienced especially when they are viewed through a magnifying glass. Enjoy, e.g., the dimensionality of Skelton's work in The Spaniel and the Cameleon (II) and The Shepherd's Dog and the Wolf (XVII). Critics agree that Blake is the most adventuresome in distancing his work from that of Gay's earliest illustrators Kent, Wootton, and Gravelot. For example, his engraving for The Tame Stag (XIII) is active and catches the attack as it is going on. The Miser and Plutus (VI, engraved by Blake) is exceptional. The Elephant and the Book-Seller (X) by Wilson is visually funny immediately. The Goat Without a Beard (XXII) by Blake is delightful. There is a tear in the middle of the illustration for The Old Woman and Her Cats )XXIII). Another strong Blake effort is The Setting Dog and the Partridge (XXX). Each of the engravings is signed by one of the nine engravers listed by Bodemann.This is a hardbound book (hard cover)John Ga
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