William Blake and the Art of Engraving
Mei-Ying Sung
The History of the Book
978 1 85196 958 6: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 578 6
Sung closely examines William Blake’s extant engraved copper plates, a previously under-used resource, and arrives at a new interpretation of his working process. Thirty-nine engraved copper plates survive, including twenty-two for illustrations for the Book of Job. Sung argues that hammer marks to the reverse of the plates point to high levels of repoussage, suggesting that Blake revised and corrected his work more than was previously thought. This belies the Romantic ideal that the acts of conception and execution are simultaneous in the creative process.
Sample pages
Readership
History of Art, History of Print and Material Culture, Romanticism
Contents
Introduction
1 The History of the Theory of Conception and Execution
2 The Evidence of Copper Plates
3 Blake's Engraved Copper Plates
4 Copper Plate Makers in Blake's Time
5 Blake's Virgil Woodcuts and the Earliest Re-engravers
Conclusion
Reviews
'this is a painstaking study that enlightens both the technical and literary understanding of Blake's works.'
– Shirley Dent, The Times Literary Supplement
'... an incredibly detailed, highly technical and scholarly work, one that contributes greatly to our understanding of Blake's techniques ... Sung demonstrates remarkable and comprehensive attention to the minute particulars of his craft that allows her to challenge easy assumptions about the theory of his creative practice.'
– Jason Whittaker, Zoamorphosis: The Blake 2.0 Blog (read the full review here)
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