Blake as an Artist, Poet, and Creator

Abstract: William Blake?s role as author and printer of his works reveal his own attitudes about the goal of an artist as a creator. His process of production required meticulous attention to detail, combination of image and writing, use of color, and creative assembly. Blake?s process was costly, and his audience was limited; it included many of his friends and associates. His collections of poems in the Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, and Songs of Innocence and Experience, with only a limited number of copies, have a history remarkably unique; the manner of printing, ordering of plates, and combination of the two works vary dramatically throughout the history of publication. These works are also unique in the fact that their history from manuscript to illuminated printing has been so carefully researched, with each step of the process and history of each copy traced to its current location. Although Blake was discouraged at the difficulty to create a market for these works, the works themselves are evidence that he took great pride in each copy produced and that his ultimate goal, which was to truly create the work through himself, was achieved.

?If a method of printing which combines the Painter and Poet is a phenomenon worth of public attention, the Author is sure of his reward,? ? Blake, Prospectus, October 1793

Blake once warned against heading in the direction of a ?universal empire.? In his book William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s, Makdisi argues that Blake?s depiction of the ?fallen man? in his illuminated works is a representation of the evil forces of the market and consumer culture. Whether or not it is true that Blake?s work is a reflection of his ideas on the market, it cannot be denied that he took extreme pride in creating his work from start to finish. Blake?s mode of production is the very essence of originality; two copies were never the same. And, by cutting out the middle-man, he had entire control of the process. Words alone are insufficient; to understand Blake?s ultimate message. Reading Blake, likewise, cannot be confined to reading just one of his works; it must, instead, be a process of tracing his works throughout their course in time, noticing how his words and art combine.

In 1789, Blake began printing the Songs of Innocence, a collection of poems showing the side of life untarnished by evil, greed, sin, and experience. The Songs of Innocence are unique in Blake?s history; they took over ten years to create. Yet another thing that distinguishes this collection is the fact that the only existing manuscript drafts resulting in the production of an illuminated book are those related to the Songs of Innocence. In Blake?s ?An Island in the Moon? we can find three early versions of Songs of Innocence. Additionally, Poetical Sketches, an early collection of Blake?s work, includes the Laughing Song. And, most remarkably, Blake?s Manuscript Notebook contains 50 poems in some form or other that led to eighteen of those actually produced in the Songs of Innocence.

At this point in time, Blake owned his own small print shop. He probably financed this, as well as other early illuminated books, with the income he had made as a commercial engraver, in addition to money he had inherited at the death of his father. The price of this first collection was not enough to cover the costs, however. Viscomi writes that ?At 5 shillings a copy, Innocence would secure a larger audience and reputation than income. The total income that Blake could have realized from Innocence in 1793 was 5 pounds 10 shillings minus the 1 pound 11 shillings it probably cost to produce.? This price, however, was still steep; at the time, 12 shillings was the average weekly income. Rather than something holding him down, however, the use of the press could be considered an investment in his future, for it distinguished him amongst other artists.

Not only did Blake take pride in the manner of production, but he spared no expense in creating these books by using ??most beautiful wove paper that could be procured? (E693), by which he meant wove paper manufactured by Taylor, Whatman, or Edmeads & Pine.? James Whatman invented in the middle of the eighteenth century for fine art printing, and Blake cut the sheets into sixteenths for octavo-size books, like Songs (approximately 19 x 13). Copper, however, was the most expensive tool; the cost of copper plates in 1799 was 22 shillings.

It is interesting, additionally, to trace the use of color in Blake?s illuminated works. Viscomi discovered that Blake ?made use of very few pigments in colouring his early illuminated books: bone black, Prussian blue, natural ultramarine, vermilion, madder lake, yellow ochre and gamboges.? It has been conjectured that Blake must have done some mixing of colors in order to produce those in the Songs of Innocence: ?He mixed Prussian blue and vermilion to get raw sienna?and Prussian blue and gamboges and red orange (a mixture of vermilion with gamboges) to get green.? Not only did Blake create the designs for his imprints, but he created the colors as well. This fact seems further evidence of Blake?s work as carefully crafted, with even each color distinct from any seen before.

From 1789 to 1793, 22 copies of the Songs of Innocence were produced. In between the first and second printings of the Songs of Innocence, Blake invented relief etching, which was an improvement to the earlier form of etching. His second edition included color, which makes it remarkably different from the early edition. A study of Blake?s printing process by Phillips has revealed that ?the Songs of Innocence was printed from thirty-one Copper Plates and printed onto seventeen leaves. The smallest plate was 111 x 63mm, and the largest was 123x76mm.?

Blake combined the Songs of Innocence with the Songs of Experience in 1794 to create The Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake?s early and late copies of Songs, it is interesting to note, were also produced 23 years apart. Also, Viscomi notes that ?between 1797 and ca 1802 (when Blake reprinted Innocence and Experience) no copies of these or any illuminated book were produced.? The Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, in regards to format; the dimensions of the two works are equal, with exception of title-page and Intro, both are slightly larger and measure 124x72mm. In his work on Blake, Viscomi details some significant facts regarding the times of production of certain copies of each work:

Blake printed Innocence and Experience as songs in 1795 then 1818, 1821, 1825, 1826 and 1827. Another difference between early and late production is the size of the edition; no more than two copies of Songs were printed in any one of the late sessions, whereas ca. 1795 8 copies worth of impressions were printed and remained on hand, to be collated at different times as need arose, which in turn gave rise to more variation in plate arrangement and order. Copies BB, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and S of So E and BB, I, J, L, M, and O of SofI and I N, W printed from 1800-1814.

Once the three collections were created, it is interesting to notice changes in the ordering of plates throughout the works. The variability in order of plates illustrates Blake?s process as very fluid, adaptable, and constantly changing. The variation in ordering of the three illuminated works, however, is not necessarily the result of intention. In fact, the last eight copies of Songs contained equal number of plates, and seven of those copies had the same order. Viscomi presents a detailed account of plate changes in Figure 3.

After 1794, it is difficult to trace exactly the printing process, since the Songs of Innocence were printed both separately and in combination. Blake also used the backs of previous Songs of Innocence plates to etch the Songs of Experience. This is symbolic of the mirroring process of the works; not only did the plates need to be etched from a mirror image, (we can see Blake practicing this in Figure 2), but both the moral and physical dimensions of the two illuminated collections were mirrored.

In February 1827, Blake?s health was down. He was commissioned by Mr. Wainewright, a friend who referred to Blake as an ?excellent artist and man,? to have a colored copy of the Songs of Innocence, to which Blake responded that he was printing the set ?at Ten Guineas, which I cannot do under Six Months.? This interaction seems to characterize the type of work that Blake did. Blake?s work was not widely circulated, and his audience was limited. He worked for friends, scholars, and family, producing work that was desired and would be appreciated.

Blake has justly been called ?a genius neglected in his own time.? His books were created individually; they were ?sacred.? Blake?s work was certainly different from that of his contemporaries. He was proud of his reinvention of the book. Phillips writes that ?Blake thought that the book, because of its abstract and static form, had become the vehicle of error, the adversary of transformation, in culture. He felt he had to renovate the book, therefore, in order to renovate culture.? The difference between Blake?s book and the others was that he created a new way of reading.

The fact that Blake?s works were not mass marketed, ironically, seems more of a victory for Blake than a failure. He once wrote, ?The few I have Printed & Sold are sufficient to have gained me great reputation as an Artist, which was the chief thing Intended.? And, at this point in time, Blake has been recognized for his art. The Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, and combined work have been traced to their present day homes (see Figure 1). It is also interesting to note that Songs of Innocence copy T is posthumous, with hand coloring in imitation of copy B.

Today, the Blake Archive provides instant access throughout the world to all of Blake?s known prints and poems. With one click, we can view the plates that took years to create. And it?s even searchable.

The access to work available in today?s world would have seemed utterly incomprehensible to Blake. It would be hard to imagine, however, that he would disapprove. The internet has transformed our perception of illuminated work, and, certainly, Blake believed in change over all else. And, most importantly, it gives the world a chance to see Blake?s art ? art that was intended for all of the world to see.

Bibliography:

Bentley, G.E. Jr. Blake Records: Second Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Blake Archive, Online: http://www.blakearchive.org/cgi-bin/nphdweb/blake/Illuminated-Book/S-INN/@Generic__CollectionView;cv=java

Erdman, David V. Blake, prophet against empire; a poet's interpretation of the history of his own times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954.

Phillips, Michael. William Blake: the creation of the songs : from manuscript to illuminated printing. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Richey, William. Blake's altering aesthetic. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1996.

Rowland, William G. Jr. Literature and the Marketplace: Romantic Writers and Their Audiences in Great Britain and the United States: Chapter 3, ?Religious Vocation and Blake?s Obscurity.? Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

Saree, Makdisi. William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Viscomi, Joseph. Blake and the Idea of the Book. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.