Joseph Viscomi
Copies of Blake's
illuminated books differ one from the other. Inferred from this fact are a set
of mistaken assumptions about production, editing, and intention. Illuminated
hooks appear to have been produced ìone by oneî (Grant 281) ìas [Blake] got
commissionsî (Davids and Petrillo 154), or ìwith a particular customer in mindî
(Erdman, Complete Poetry and Prose
786; henceforth referred to as E), and ìover many years, beginning . . . in the
late I780s and not ending until the last years of his lifeî (Essick ìWilliam
Blake, William Hamilton, and the Materials of Graphic Meaningî 857;
henceforward referred to as ìMaterialsî). [1] Ý Moreover, revision seems continuous and
deliberate, making each copy of a book seem like ìa new editionî (Johnson 126),
which in turn seems to express Blake's contempt for and rejection of
conventional modes of graphic and book production. Hence, ìevery copy of every
bookî not only appears
to have been produced uniquely, but also Blake appears to have ìcertainly
intended [illuminated books] to be differentî (Plowman 11). These positions are
neatly summarized by Jerome McGann, who states that Blake intended that ìeach of his works be
uniqueî and that ìthese differencesî among copies were not ìmerely accidental
[or] unimportant for the ëmeaningí of Blake's work. Certainly to Blake they
seemed immensely consequential; indeedóand he was quite rightóthey seemed
definitive of the difference between one sort of art (free, creative) and
another (commonplace, generalized)î (ìTextî 275, 276). And yet, while designs
as initially drawn on plates do differ from the designs as printed, and prints
do differ one from the other, such variations do not signify a rejection of
uniformity and all it supposedly represents, nor do they determine the printís
meaning. The first kind of difference was inherent to a mode of production in
which finishing was conceived as part of the inventive process, and the second
kindófor example, the varying width of a river in a particular imageórequires
comparisons that Blake could not have expected or intended his readers to make.
Before assuming ideological causes, one needs to examine the technical and
material grounds for difference and to understand the history of the works
being compared.
First, much of the coloring and recoloring of books, especially of early copies, was done by Mrs.
Blake, who appears to have worked independently of Blake on some books and with
him on others. Thus, the marks and colors distinguishing one impression from
another may not reflect Blake's hand or intention at all. Second, illuminated
books were not printed and colored uniquely, one at a time over a number of
years, but, with Mrs. Blake's help, in small editions. [2]Copies of an illuminated book produced
in
the same printing session, and thus in the same printing and coloring styles,
are technically, materially. And stylistically far more alike
than copies from different printing sessions, which could be and frequently
were more than twenty years apart. And third, copies of books produced at
different times are different because they were produced in different styles
and according to different ideas of the Book. Indeed, Songs of Innocence copy B and Songs
of Innocence and of Experience copy Z, which have
been reproduced by Dover publications and are routinely compared in classrooms
to prove that each copy of an illuminated book is unique, were produced in 1759
unit 1825 respectively, the former when illuminated prints were
produced as pages in a book of poems and the latter when the prints were
produced as miniature paintings (Viscomi, Art
18). If you were to compare the former wish Innocence
copy E, with which it was produced (but which, like most copies, has never been
reproduced to provide such a comparison), and the latter with copy AA (reproduced
only on microfilm), with which it was produced, you would see immediately how
alike edition copies are (see Book, Plates I, III). You
would not only see how ahistorical such comparisons and the claims of
intentional uniqueness are, but also how suspect are readings based on such
differences. For example, the river in ìThe Little Black Boyî in Songs of Innocence and
of Experience copy Z is wider than
that of Songs of Innocence copy B, which for Myra Glazer indicates
that ìthe child has had a longer, more arduous journey to endureî than in the
first impression (235). Robert Essick, recognizing that ìabsences become
present only through comparison,î asks, ìTo whom could [Blake] be communicating
the message?î (ìMaterialsî 855, 858). [3] The river
is wider in the copy Z impression because the plate borders were printed, which
necessarily extended the bottom
line of the river. But the presence of the border was due to the printing style
used at that time for all illuminated books and not to Blake's desire to widen
this particular river, let alone the river in this particular impression.
Indeed, the
features characteristic
of late copies of illuminated books, such as single-sided printing, plate
borders, frame lines, washed texts, translucent colors, and outlined figures,
all of which alter the reader's experience and movement through a bookís text, do not
represent a rethinking of any particular image, poem, or book. They are matters
of production style that show up in all
copies of all illuminated books reprinted at that time, Songs, as well as Visions,
America, Europe, Urizen, Marriage, and Milton.
The overt
similarities among impressions printed and colored in editions challenge Steven
Carr's assertion that the ìvariability . . . embedded in the material processes
of producing illuminated printsî was ìradicalî (182) and require the
qualification of another assertion, that ìBlake's habitual ëtouching upí of
prints with ink and scratchwork and, most especially, his ever-changing manner
of illuminating a page further differentiate every version of a design,
producing not only large-scale iconographic variants but also a subtler
alterity in background details, figuresí lineaments and expressions, and the
visual relationships linking together pictorial elementsî (185). [4]Ý Like most critics and scholars, Carr
expresses an ahistorical idea of Blake's style in that he compares works
regardless of when and how they were produced. Relatively speaking, few copies
of illuminated books (e.g., none of the eleven recto/verso copies of Visions produced in 1793) were outlined in pen and ink, a feature
characteristic of late copies and of early copies that had been recolored
and/or salvaged (see Book, chaps. 15 and 33).
Carr's claim that Blake's ìmannerî was ìever-changingî seems based on
bibliographical descriptions of illuminated prints and not examination of an
edition's impressions. For example, in G. E. Bentley's Blake Books, Visions plate7 is described
as follows:
COLOURING: The MAN'S
ROBE is Blue (A, B, G, J, O), Green (C), Purple (D, 1), Pink (E), Black (E),
reddish-Brown (H), pale Brown (K, Tate pull), Yellow (L), Green (M), or Grey
(BMPR pull). The WOMAN, usually nude-Pink, is sometimes yellowish-Green (G) or
Green (I). The SKY is bright with Purple (A-C, E, K-M), Pink (B, P), Yellow (D,
G, M, O, P), Red or Orange (E-G, I, K, M, O, P, BMPR and Tate pulls) or Mustard
(J). The SUN, usually Yellow or Orange, is Red (A, G) or pale Green (D).
VARIANTS: There is no sun in copies B, C, H, and the Tate pull. In B, C, E, L,
there are Grey or Purple clouds from the wave to the right margin. Ordinarily
the sun is a semicircle, but in E, F, I, M only one quarter of the sun is
visible, and in O, P one eighth is visible, while in L we see the whole sun. In
F, a thin, leafless Brown tree is added in ink in the bottom right margin. Copy
B is inscribed ìSolitary Coast.î (471)
Such detail, a requisite of descriptive bibliography,
helps one to visualize individual impressions. But because plate 7 and the
other plates in Visions are grouped by repeated
motifs and colors and not by technique and style, no two plates from Visions share the
same groups. Consequently production patterns for the book are impossible to
discern, chronology and sequence are impossible to determine, and variation
among copies is impossible to dismiss as anything but intentional and
extensive. Statements about illuminated books based on such bibliographical
descriptions will be misleading, while those based on the examination of actual
copies will be puzzling when infused with the idea of continuous variation. For
example, David Erdman states that Blake ìloathed . . . monotony . . . and when
we consider how much variety he introduced into the printing and painting of
his works, how distinctive each copy is in coloring and in the finishing of
details, it is surprisingly how few truly variant details are to be foundî (Illuminated
Blake 15; henceforth referred to
as IB). Erdman's summary of work
produced between 1789 and 1827 combines characteristics of edition printing
(ìfew truly variant detailsî) and characteristics of various production styles
(distinct copies). When impressions from different editions are compared,
variety does indeed seem to have been deliberately introduced into the printing
itself, since formats and even tactile surfaces varied with each printing
session. But impressions from the same printing session were printed the same.
The inks, paper, pressure, size, wiping, even accidentals, and so on were
repeated exactly and ìmonotonously.î [5]
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Given the potential
for change, the absence of pronounced differences among copies within an
edition is quite surprising and the differences themselves seem minor, the
inevitable result of a mode of production involving two people printing and
coloring numerous impressions by hand and before collation and without
prototypes. Differences within an edition were due also to the parameters of
what was visually acceptable being very largeówhich is a kind way of saying
that Blake kept many impressions that printmakers then as now would deem poorly
printed, illegible, misaligned, etc., features that prompted William Muir, a
professional lithographer and Blake's main nineteenth-century facsimilist, to
declare that illuminated prints were produced with ìa skilful carelessness.î [6] These
parameters may reflect paper costs, but they may also reflect an awareness that
absolute
control over relief etching was not possible. As we shall see, Blake's idea of
uniformity permitted variation; if variations were technically inevitable and
aesthetically acceptable, then they could also be deliberately allowed to occur. Such variations among copies of the same
edition, then, do not represent a rethinking of the poem or page but a
sensitivity to the generative powers of execution, to the logic of the tools,
materials, and processesóand to the original contributions of an assistant.
They no more signify deliberate revision or
alteration of models or earlier copies than the repetition of colors,
technique, and plate order in the last copies of Songs signifies
ìservile copyingî of models. As is evinced by commercially produced engravings
and colored prints, variation among illuminated prints is not extraordinary or
unprecedented. Even the overt variations within an edition, like different ink
colors or hand-drawn compositions, appear motivated by the desire to diversify
stock, comparable to a publisher's practice of issuing a book in various
formats, and not by anger at or desire to reject conventions or modes of
production that Blake chose not to
employ. Apparently the Blakes were not graphic purists; they were not
interested in making an edition's copies exactly
the same, but neither were they interested in making them completely different.
The latter objective. was technically realizable and the former almost
so, but both would have required far more time and labor than was actually
expended.
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Edition
printing means that copies of illuminated books can be grouped according to
printing sessions, which in turn can be dated to reveal the history of a
particular book and the pattern of illuminated print production in general.
Such information refutes the idea that illuminated books cannot be edited, and
supports the idea that they can be edited historically. By identifying variants
and calculating their significance, the editor can define, date, and sequence
tile various versions of a book. Theoretically, all and every variation alters the relation among the signs that
constitute the verbal-visual system of an illuminated poem (Carr, 182), but in
practice it appears that the variations in production styles create distinct
versions of a poem while coloring and even compositional variations within an
edition usually do not. Variations in the style of production, because they are
different in kind (e.g., facing pages vs recto-only leaves, or lightly washed
images vs. images painted, outlined, and framed), alter the reading experience,
whereas the latter type of variant, different in degree, usually do notóor, if
they do, then how must be shown concretely and in detail and not simply
asserted theoretically. Indeed, part of the critical and editorial process is
to distinguish one kind of difference from the other, to determine whether a
variant generates a new reading, and to ascertain whether that new reading was
intended. Otherwise, as Essick has warned, the ìinterpreters Ö are in danger
of
using Blake's graphics as little more than a foundation for their own
mythologiesî (ìMaterialsî 859). [7]
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ As this brief summary
suggests, theories about Blake's mode of book production and about how the
books should be edited are grounded in the misinterpretation of a
bibliographical fact and, as the remainder of this essay will argue, of Blake's
intentions. The questions we need to ask ourselves are, How did Blake perceive
these differences? Were they ìimmensely consequentialî?
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ The
assumption that variants were intended or perceived by Blake as meaningful,
produced deliberately to destabilize the text and to make every copy of a book
a separate version, is based partly on a misunderstanding of Blake's mode of
production and partly on Blake's statement that ìnot a line is drawn without
intention & that most discriminate & particular as Poetry admits not
a
Letter that is Insignificant so Painting admit not a Grain of Sand of a Blade
of Grass Insignificant much less and Insignificant Blur or Markî (E 560). Blake
wrote this in A Vision of the Last
Judgment, an important twenty-page elucidation in the Notebook of his aesthetics in general and, in particular, of an
exceedingly detailed painting of the same title now presumed lost (Bullin
2:648). [8] The passage actually expresses one of Blake's
primary aesthetic theories, that line was the foundation of art and that colors
and washes were secondary.
The
entire passage reads:
General Knowledge is
Remote Knowledge it is in Particulars that Wisdom consists & Happiness too.
Both in Art & in Life General Masses are as Much Art as a Pasteboard Man is
Human Every Man has Eyes None & Mouth this Every Idiot knows but he who
enters into & discriminates most minutely the Manners & Intentions the
Characters in all their branches is the alone Wise or Sensible Man & on
this discrimination All Art is founded. I intreat then that the Spectator will
attend to the Hands & Feet to the Lineaments of the Countenances they are
all descriptive of Character & not a line is drawn without intention &
that most discriminate & particular as Poetry admits not a Letter that is
Insignificant so Painting admits not a Grain of Sand or a Blade of Grass
Insignificant much less an Insignificant Blur or Mark (E 560).
In practice, however,
not all lines are equal. As revealed by Blakeís sketches, drawings, and the
pentimenti of the watercolors, the line that discriminates and particularizes
is the line that finds and fixes form in the initially chaotic sketch of lines,
marks, and blurs. Such a line, whether made in pencil or, as in finished
watercolors, in pen, is necessarily made intentionally, with a ìfirm and
decided handî (E 576). In this two-part drawing process it is not the blank white
paper that is minutely organized but the initial marks made on it, which
requires a mind open to chance and a decisive hand. Described as ìMaking out
the Parts,î [9] Blake's drawing style united invention
and
execution, a point Blake makes explicit in other descriptions of his drawing
process: ìan Original
Invention
[cannot] Exist without Execution Organized & minutely Delineated &
Articulated Either by God or Man,î and, to differentiate his linear technique
from the tonal techniques of the Flemish and Venetian artists, ìTheir art is
to
lose form, [Mr. Bís] art is to find form, and to keep itî (E 576, 538).
ìOrganization,î sometimes used as an appositive to execution (E 637), implies
having something to organize, and is thus a stage within the execution process.
Because execution incorporates organization and involves decisions, it is also
inseparable from intellect and invention: ìA Facility in Composing is the
Greatest Power of Art & Belongs to None but the Greatest Artists i.e. the
Most Minutely Discriminating & Determinateî (E 643). Execution so defined
means that ìThe unorganized Blots & Blurs of Rubens & Titian are not
Art nor can their Method ever express ideas or imaginations any more than Popes
Metaphysical Jargon of Rhymingî (E 576). In effect, material execution is to
the artist as chaos is to God; it must be organized, which requires drawing out
decisively its every beauty and firmly delineating them so invention can speak
clearly. Indeed, Blake makes the analogy explicit in A Descriptive Catalogue: ìLeave
out this line and you leave out life itself; all is chaos again. and the line
of the almighty must be drawn out upon it before man or beast can existî (E
550). By these acts invention is articulated, is clear and intelligible
utterance; without them, ìWithout Minute Neatness of Execution[,] The Sublime
cannot Exist.î For Blake, firm outlines signified decisiveness; conversely, indetermined
form reflected indecision and fuzzy thinking. The connection between mental
perspicacity and material form was variously expressed: ìAll Sublimity is
founded on Minute Discrimination,î ìSingular & Particular Detail is the
Foundation of the Sublime,î and the ìGrandeur of Idea is founded on Precision
of Ideas,î (E 643, 647, 646). [10]
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Drawing
is also the foundation of the sublime in the sense of being the place of
origin, the place where grand ideas and images are found. By drawingóand making the initial marks constituting the
drawingóthe artist invents, in the sense of the word's root, ìinvenire,î to
find. Henry Fuseli defines invention much the same way in his seventh lecture
(1801): ìto invent is to find: to find something, presupposes its
existence somewhere, implicitly or explicitly, scattered or in a massî (Knowles
1:136-137). Artistic form and meaning are found in the material world and by
extension the medium itself, which Blake scents explicitly to acknowledge.
Blake's comments about ìfinding form and keeping it,î about organizing
executionî and ìmaking out the partsî reflect an awareness that form and
meaning were not fully preexistent. or as Essick has carefully shown that
ìintentionalityî did not fully exist ìprior to and outside the artistís mediumî
(William Blake and the Language of Adam 190). The point is
that in drawing as Blake practiced it not all lines and marks were intended and
intention itself evolved through the medium. Blake's comments and practice
challenge the theory that his was an eidetic imagination, or, at any rate, that
his art was a faithful copying of fully formed, preexistent mental images. [11] Rather,
form and meaning evolve boar the continual interactive relation between mind
and language/medium, between invention and execution, as marks and
erasures suggest other marks, directions, images, and ideas.
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Blake
expressed the idea that form was defined by line and not by colors many times
over: ìIn a work of Art it is not fine tints that are required but Fine Forms, Fine
Tints without, are loathsome. Fine Tints without Fine Forms are always the
Subterfuge of the Blockheadî (E 571), and, more troubling, ìthere is no
difference between Rafael's Cartoons and his Frescos, or Pictures, except that
the Frescos, or Pictures, are more finishedî (E 549). Apparently Raphael's
ìfine tintsî were true to his ìfine forms,î his coloring or finishing extending
instead of distorting the work's foundation. Nevertheless, Blake's comments
about finishing having no substantial effect on foundation contradict the idea
that every line or mark was intended and significant, and they reinforce the
idea that the most decisive stage in painting was not coloring but deciding
what to admit to the work's final formówhich, paradoxically, was synonymous
with building the work's foundation. Blake's comments about finishing and
foundation raise these questions: Were plate image and illuminated print
analogous to cartoon and fresco, with the print's meaning dependent on its
foundation (that is, the image as delineated on the plate) instead of its coloring and
finishing, on its beginning rather than its end? Does Blake's subordination of
finishing to line, in other words, imply that illuminated books had ideal forms
impervious to the changes that occurred through production?
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Blake's
1793 prospectus intimates the role coloring played in the conception of
illuminated books. He defines illuminated printing as a ìmethod of Printing
both Letter-press and Engraving in a style more ornamental, uniform, and grand, than any before discoveredî (E
692, my emphasis). The ultimate source for Blake's description appears to be
Joshua Reynolds's well-known response to William Gilpin's theory of the
picturesque, which was published in 1792 in Gilpin's Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty (35). Blake quoted Reynolds
approvingly years later in an 1802 letter to Thomas Butts: ìëYou are certainly
right in saying that Variety of Tints & Forms is Picturesque: but it must
be remembered on the other hand; that the reverse of this (uniformity of Colour & a long continuation of lines) produces
Grandeuríî (E 718-719).
Blake underlined Reynoldsís parenthetical statement apparently to validate his
own painting style, which consisted of flat, minimally modeled washes over
pencil lines strengthened and unified in pen and ink. Blake, however, disagreed
with Reynoldsís definition of ìornament.î Reynolds associated ìornamentî with
the Venetian style of coloring, in contrast to the ìgrandî style of the Florentine's.
He believed that ìthe union of the two may make a sort of composite styleî (71), an idea Blake
thoroughly dismissed: ìThere is No Such Thing as A Composite Styleî (E 652).
For Blake, ìornamentalî depended ìaltogetherÖon Distinctness of Form. The
Venetian ought not to be calld the Ornamental Styleî (E 651). Blake associated
ìornamentî with the grand and uniform style, a link thin Blake appears to have made as
early as 1793. [12]
Illuminated prints,
then, are ìornamentalî in that their coloring is part of the print's
original form and meaning and not mere ìdecorationî or something added to principles. They are ìgrandî
in
the sense that the long printed line dominates the design. They are ìuniformî in the
double sense of being printed from metal plates and covered in unbroken and
evenly laid-in washes. [13]Ý When Blake wrote his prospectus, he had
printed over sixty copies of Innocence, Thel, Marriage, Visions, and America; he would have known that what remained uniform, in
addition to the unchanging printed line, was the style of coloring and not the individual placement of colors or
ornamental flourishes. [14]Ý A concept of uniformity that permits
variation suggests that coloring was itself an integral part of conception but
that variants of the kind we have been discussing were of little consequence,
or at least they were not intended to make each copy of an edition a new
version of the book or each impression an independent drawing.
While visual
differences among copies arc believed to signify unique production and
revision, difference (that is, the idea of difference) is believed to be
ideologically significant. As noted, Erdman states that it reveals a
ìloth[ing]î of ìmonotonyî (IB 15);
McGann claims that it was ìpart of Blake's artistic projectî to make ìeach of
his works be uniqueî (ìTextî 275).
Essick argues that it signifies ìBlake consciously violat[ing]î the
ìmechanization, efficiency, and uniformityî or ìconventional tastes and methods
of production,î ìa revolt against empire, against the hegemony of machine over
manî (ìPreludiumî 6). Although Essick's opinion has changed, his initial
assessment was deeply influential. [15]Ý Illuminated printing came to be interpreted
as an ìartistic practice significantly in opposition to historically dominant
modes of artistic productionî (Carr 183), a practice that was ìpartly designed
as an artistic escape from . . . narrow commercial anxieties (Eaves, ìMachineî
63) and ìin deliberate defiance of [Blake's] period's normal avenues of
publicationî (McGann, Critique 44). Indeed, the idea that ìBlake's methods of engraving and
copperplate printing purposefully set themselves apart from
industrially-determined print technologiesî is now, as the Santa Cruz Blake
Study Group recognized, ìcommonly believed.î From this ìfact,î the study group
infers that Blake's ìpractice may even have constituted an active critique or
subversion of what Walter Benjamin has called the age of mechanical
reproduction, anticipating Brecht's combined aesthetic and ideological
insistence on exhibitingórather than hidingóthe means of producing the artistic effectî (ìTypeî 323).
It is in this light that Stewart Crehan can define illuminated printing as a
ìrebellion against the artistic dominance of the aristocracy and commercial
bourgeoisie,î its production motivated primarily by ìthe historical need to
transform the conditions within which art was produced,î and illuminated books
as a socio-aesthetic as well as manifesting the political ìstruggle to
transform the relation of artistic production in favour of the creative
artisanî (241). [16]
But to what exactly
are illuminated prints and books being compared? What were the ìhistorically
dominant modes of artistic production,î the ìindustrially-determined print
technologies,î and the ìnormal avenues of publicationî? They seem little other
than the graphic ideal, whether in the form
of letterpress printing or commercial line engraving, in which images are
repeated exactly and labor is divided among various hands. Indeed, according
to Carr, ìthe logic of mechanical reproduction is one of identity: it leads to
a
multiplication of the same, to a mass publication of what are taken to be
identical copiesî (182). At first the contrast between illuminated printing and
conventional modes of production seems justified, given that Blake likened
William Woollett's engravings to machines: ìA Machine is not a Man nor a Work
of Art[;] it is Destructive of Humanity & of Artî (E 575). With the competition
so defined, illuminated prints do indeed stand out and seem heroically alone.
But the contrast breaks down when examined closely. First, variationóin the
form of states, proofs, prints before letters, size and type of paper, and so
onówas inherent to the aesthetics and economics of conventional print
production. As Essick has demonstrated with Blake's own engraving of William
Hogarth's Beggar's Opera, Act III, the ìhistory of a
reproductive engraving reveals the same differential pattern as the
multilayered production of variation in Blake's unconventional etchings. The
differences are in emphasis and detail, not in the nature of the phenomenon, and in
our tendency to consider its presence in copy engravings as a matter of ëmere
connoisseurshipí (to use Carr's Phrase) while granting great consequence to the
same processes in Blakeís workî (ìHow Blake's Body Means,î 201). Second, Blake
himself did not contrast illuminated printing with engraving. In the prospectus
he announces that ìtwo large highly finished engravingsî were also available
and that two more were in progress, which suggests that he believed that
engraving was like illuminated printing in that it too provided the means to
ìpropagate such works as have wholly absorbed the Man of Genius,î in this particular
sense ìthe Labours of the Artistî (E 692). While illuminated printing
incorporated the work of the painter and poet with that of the printmaker or
engraver, it was not engraving's contrary. Each was appropriate for the job
asked of it. Third, Blake slid not criticize engraving per se, but the idea
that engravings were reproductive only, a self-fulfilling and self-limiting
perception that rendered him a mere craftsman. With engraving and painting both grounded in drawing, hierarchical
structuring of the two arts made no sense. The inherently artistic value of
engraving, however did not mean reproductions were unnecessary (Blake himself
treasured the reproductions after Raphael and Michaelangelo), but
that they too, like original engravings, should display the ìfirmness of a
Masters Touch,î like that of James Basire, his teacher and a master
reproductive engraver, and not the ìundecided bunglingî that marks the
mechanical labor of a journeyman (E 575). It is the latter style of engraving,
represented by Woollett, that Blake attacks.
But what exactly was
Woollett's crime? He produced engravings in the best tonal manner of the day,
in the style of the Rubens and LeBrun gallery prints that George Michael Moser
showed Blake, and in opposition to the ìHard Stiff & Dry Unfinished Works
of Artî of Blake's heroes, Darer and Raimondi. Blake told Moser: ìThese things
that you call Finishd are not Even Begun how can they then, be Finishd? The Man
who does not know The Beginning, never can know the End of Artî (E 639). [17] The
ìbeginning,î as in foundation, was line, which was also its ìendî in that line
was not obscured by color or
tone. ìEndî also referred to purpose, and the
purpose of art was to articulate effectively and clearly the artist's
imagination. For Blake, the imagination was manifest in outline and not
brushwork, for the latter appealed to the sensual at the expense of the
intellectual eye. The absence, then, of firmly decided line was a sign of
bungling, indolence, or indecision, was the formulaic labor of a craftsman and
not the execution of a master.
This connection
between Woollett's engraving style and the Dutch and Venetian painting styles
is problematic, for while the latter painting styles cause ìevery thing in Art
[to] become a Machineî (E 547), they in fact show far more of the artist's
hand; that is, they exhibit more of ìthe means of producing the artistic
effectî than Blake's own painting style or the Florentine style he emulated. This overt exhibition of the means of
production is why Reynolds ranked the Venetian below the Florentine: it
addressed primarily the senses rather than the intellect. According to
Reynolds, ìthe great end of [painting] is to strike the imagination. The
Painter is therefore to make no ostentation of the means by which this is done;
the spectator is only to feel the result in his bosom. An inferior artist is
unwilling that any part of his industry should be lost upon the spectator. He
takes as much pains to discover, as the greater artist does to conceal, the
marks of his subordinate assiduityî (59). More concisely still he writes:
ìTintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian school, seem to have
painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and expertness
in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art, which as I
before observed, the higher stile requires its followers to concealî (63). It
was an observation Reynolds made many times over: ìYoung minds are indeed too
apt to be captivated by this splendour of stile; and that of the Venetians is
particularly pleasingî because it gives ìpleasure to the eye or senseî (64). [18]
Reynolds equates an
overt style of execution with execution itself, which is partly why he
safeguards the intellectual integrity of invention by separating it from execution.
Blake, on the other hand, while agreeing with Reynolds's devaluation of
indistinct form and his idea of painting's primary purpose, believed that
associating execution with the Venetian and Dutch painting styles was to
ìprostituteî the concept (E 652). For Blake, true execution was inseparable
from invention, hence it needed to be
differentiated from mere labor. Dutch and Venetian paintings were
essentially sketches, mere ìblots & blursî overlabored in colors and
finished with loaded brushes, which necessarily rendered form indistinct and
showed more of the artist's hand or means of production than did the ìgrand
styleî (E 576). Blake derides the loaded brush, asserting that those who equate
painting with the ìPant Brushî live in ìthe house of Rembrantî (E 515). ìPant,î
which Blake repeats three times, suggests labored breath and exhaustion as
opposed to inspiration and decisiveness. [19] It follows
that Blake should deride the engraving style that attempts to imitate these features,
the style of Woollett
and Robert Strange:
ìThe Labourd
Works of Journeymen employed by Correggio. Titian Veronese & all the
Venetians ought not to be shewn to the Young Artist as the Works of original
Conception any more than the Engravings of Strange Bartollozzi [and] Woollett
.
. . [they] are Works of Manual Labourî (E 644). [20] By
equating these graphic and pictorial styles, Blake implies that the paintings
are no more
original than
reproductive engravings; both styles are
formulaic and could he executed by anyone trained in that style, ìby What all
can do Equally wellî (E 573). These kinds of engravings and paintings, which
represent ìhigh finishd Ignoranceî and ìMental Weakness,î as well as ìendless
labourîólabor without end, or purpose, and continued beyond what was necessary
(E 573, 548)óare poor examples for art students precisely because they are
labored; that is, they show too readily the hand of the artist, either
literally in the form of brush work or metaphorically in the virtuoso handling
of a complex and illusionistic line system (Landseer 138).
We cannot use Blake's
criticism of labor and mechanical form to support the position that Blake
abhorred the mechanical and favored exhibiting the means of production since
by ìmechanicalî he is referring to works that call attention to themselves,
that
overtly show the ìmeans of producing artistic effects.î As revealed by his firm
belief in inspiration and the primacy of an artist's first thoughts, Blake
advocated the aesthetic of the sketch, but his attacks on ìblots and blursî
reveal that he abhorred the indistinctness of its various forms, believing that
art engaged the imagination through subject and theme and not through handling. [22] It
is not that Blake failed to show his hand in illuminated printing: books
color printed, through the impasto-like effects of the ink and paint, are
reminiscent of alla prima painting,
and white-line etching, woodcut-on-pewter, and the Virgil wood engravings were
executed with tools clearly reflecting the body's motion and thereby calling
attention to the medium. While color prints are in effect
imitations of paintings, the experimental graphics are neither imitations nor
translations but images unique to their medium. To have made them so is
essentially to have put into practice Landseerís argument for elevating the
status of engraving: engraving is aesthetically valuable because its language
is unique, a truth hidden by its own film of familiarity (138ff). In these more
experimental graphics Blake seems intent on confronting the viewer, on defamiliarizing
the print. But all of these startling visual effects were created after 1788,
and thus they do not reflect Blake's intentions for inventing illuminated
printing or his early use of it, nor do these effects signal a change in
Blakeís intentions or signify a desire to overthrow graphic convention, since
the world of graphic art was far more inclusive and eclectic than the simple
contrast between Woollettís style of engraving and illuminated printing
suggests.Ý Indeed, as Landseerís survey
of the ageís new (and presumably ìindustrially-determinedî) print technologies
demonstrates, graphic art was anything but monolithic and conventions were
everywhere breaking down.
The abiding taste was
not for things mechanical, efficient, and uniform, but for proofs, facsimiles
of drawings, and color and colored prints. According to The Artistís Repository, etchings ìexecuted
by painters are seldom anything further advanced than by aqua-fortis; and herein
[we] discover the master's hand and facility of design, which is their meritî
(2:18-19). Hand-colored etchings, like Thomas Rowlandsonís caricature prints,
which Blake noted in 1799 ought not to be as popular as they were (E 704, 702),
along with aquatints and the ìsoft blending and infantile indefinityî of stipple
and chalk engraving, had become the ìrageî (Landseer 126). These techniques
were stimulated by the taste for drawings and sketches, including the ìrough
sketchesî that had become ìthe prevailing tide of fashionî by 1793 (Craig 5-6).
Aquatint, which Gilpin used to reproduce his ìrough sketches,î had become ìthe
principle process employed in book illustrationsî between 1790 and 1830 (Hardie
87; see also Prideaux). [23] From a purist aesthetic,
unfinished
etching and color
and colored prints were
abominations as offensive as aquatint's and stipple's obliteration of firm
outlines (Landscer 180; Book, chaps. 13 and 14). [24] In
effect, to applaud illuminated printing as ìan active critique or subversion
of what Walter Benjamin
has called the age of mechanical reproductionî (Santa
Cruz 323), or a ìrebellion against the artistic dominance of the aristocracy
and commercial bourgeoisieî (Crehan 241), is essentially to applaud Blake for
not being a graphic purist at a time when few purists were left.
Illuminated printing
appears politically significant partly because innovation per se is defined as
a deliberate break with established practice. When Blake's innovations are
defined technically and placed historically, however, illuminated printing can
be seen to share many of the aesthetic aims of techniques that were then
becoming established precisely because they were meeting the demands of a
commercial bourgeoisie. In other words, Blake was joining an argumentóand
endorsing, reinterpreting, and rejecting the various ideological positions
underlying that argumentórather than starting one, joining a growing print
market that included the ìlegitimate artistî and the many ìempirical
pretendersî (Landseer 138), line engravings as well as monochrome, colored, and
color chalk engravings, stipples, aquatints, etchings, mezzotints, and now ìa
method of Printing both Letter-press and Engraving in a style more ornamental,
uniform, and grand, than any before discoveredî (E 692). His designs were drawn
in firm outline with pens and brushes, and the plates were printed in colors
and/or the impressions were hand colored with an assistant. Illuminated prints
are exactly as J. T. Smith described them: impressions ìprinted in any tintî
so that Blake ìor Mrs. Blake [could] colour the marginal figures up by hand in
imitation of drawingsî (Bentley, Blake Records 460). The difference between illuminated
printing and other techniques that sought to imitate drawings is that the brush
and pen marks in the former were actually created by pens and brushes and not,
as in the latter, imitated with metal instruments and indirect processes (e.g.,
aquatint). [25] And even
then the differences were not absolute. Creating dark areas directly as
positive pen and brush marks was possible in a variation of aquatint called
sugar-lift aquatint, the method used by Thomas Gainsborough in the early l780s
to reproduce a few of his pen-and-ink drawings and by Alexander Cozens to
reproduce ìblotsî in New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing
Original Compositions of Landscapes (1784). The image is drawn on the plate
with pens and brushes using an ink mixed with sugar. The design is covered with
a thin ground and immersed in water, which causes the sugar in the ink to swell
and break through the ground, thereby leaving the autographic gestures of pen and brush as positive shapes. The
method is perfectly analogous to illuminated printing, except that the design
is given an aquatint ground and is etched in intaglio. Its similarity to
illuminated printing suggests that Blake and Gainsborough were responding to
the same aesthetic and possibly commercial forces (as was Alois Senefelder when
he invented lithography then known as ìpolyautographyî), and not necessarily
that Blake knew of the earlier method. [26]
ìArtistic effect,î
like difference, appears to be a ìradicalî aspect of illuminated printing when
examined outside its historical and technical context. Other kinds of prints,
however, particularly colored and color prints, were also ìradicalî in the
sense that they varied one from the other and showed the ìmaster's hand and
facility of design.î Instead of perceiving illuminated printing as a reaction againstóor an effort to rejectóìconventional
tasteî or the ìcommercial bourgeoisie,î we need to see in it Blake's desire to
tap into a market created by the status quo's demand for drawings, a market
actively supplied by commercial and original printmakers. Illuminated prints
exhibit ìthe means of producing the artistic effectî because they were printed
and colored by hand in an age that placed great value on color prints and
autographic gestures. Like etchings and facsimiles of sketches, they move
toward the simple and spontaneous, toward drawing, and away from the overtly
skillful performance characteristic of reproductive engraving. But this move
away from the reproductive ideal does not make them ìsubversive,î except to
purists like John Landseer; indeed, to collectors of the day, illuminated
prints may have represented Blake at his most fashionable. [27]
While the combination
of word and image is the most obvious feature of illuminated printing, it
appears to have been suggested by the possibilities of the technique and not
the impetus for the technique's invention. Relief etching appears to have been
invented to reproduce drawings, or, at any rate, the Approach of Doom, a pen-and-ink-wash
drawing executed by Blake's brother Robert, appears to have been the first work
executed in the new technique (see Book, chap. 20). This production, which
presumably answered Blake's desire to publish original images in general and to
imitate wash drawings in particular, revealed through the association of pen
and ink with writing the potential of relief etching to reproduce wordsóat
which time the idea for illuminated printing and poetry was born. While the
full technical and aesthetic origin of relief etching and illuminated printing
cannot be examined here, suffice it to say that illuminated printing evolved
out of a preexistent technique and was not invented to realize a preexistent
form, the illuminated book, or a political agenda, the overthrowing of
conventional modes of book production. The idea for illuminated books, in other
words, did not determine the technique; assuming that it did is yet another
example of assuming that invention precedes execution. That Blake invented and
used a graphic technique modeled on drawing, in process
and in appearance, and that he chose to use it to publish poetry is no doubt
ideologically significant, both to him, in that it appears to have supplied the
grounds for an aesthetic theory advocating the unity of invention and
execution, and to us, in that it illuminates the contemporaneity and context of
his experiments.Ý Nevertheless, defining
exactly what those ideological positions were and how they were manifested is
difficult.Ý The use of a technique (as
opposed to style) is not necessarily synonymous with the rejection of another
technique, at least not from an artistís point of view, though it may indeed become that (e.g.,
Blake's early use of water-based paint did not express a hatred of oil paint).
Its use depends more on its appropriateness to the project at hand than on an
aversion to alternatives, on reasons that are more practical, economic, and
aesthetic than overtly political. Moreover, we must be careful about ascribing
undue significance to Blake's undertaking all stages of illuminated printing.
First, Blake's control over production was not as complete as imagined, given
the nature of the technique and Mrs. Blake's assistance is printing and
coloring impressions. Second, even if it were, it would not necessarily be
politically significant or signify a desire to escape the division of labor
characteristic of commercial graphics or letterpress printing. This is because
an artist (as opposed to a writer) accustomed to controlling all stages of
labor in the production of original printsówhether the prints are engravings
like Job or etchings like Albion
roseóis not really varying his
practice or controlling more of his labor by using a new technique or by producing
prints with words. It only seems so when the process is approached from the
perspective of book publishing instead of printmaking and drawing. This is not
to say that Blake failed to perceive and discuss illuminated printing
symbolically, but only to point out that the technique was not invented to
realize a desire to control his own labor or all aspects of an artwork, let
alone to provide analogies, symbols, and metaphors for later poems.
The facts that Blake
owned his own press, produced original images in various graphic techniques,
controlled images from beginning to end, and perceived graphic art as being
equal to painting and drawing, that is, as sharing in the same ''endî or
purpose of ìArt,î are ideologically significant precisely because they reflect
an idea of printmaking not widely shared. But if the signature in the first
state of Albion rose is ìWB inv 1780,î as it is
in the second state, then Blake's radical approach to and perception of graphic
art was probably already in place when he invented relief etching in 1788, even
if it was not much practiced. [28] That he, a professional
engraver, exhibited watercolors at the Royal Academy in 1784 and 1785 indicates
that he perceived
himself as both artist and printmaker, the necessary prerequisite for producing
original prints. Blake's eyes were already open to the possibilities of using
graphic art creatively; that is to say Blake's idea of graphic art in general,
and not of illuminated printing in particular, was the ìdramatic breakî with
ìthe engraving and printing conventions of his timeî (Essick, Prinnnaker 255). Essick has argued that ìin the early 1780s, Blake
attempted to fulfill his expectations as an artist and poet through the normal
channels of publication. Failure in this endeavorî led to this break and to
ìthe invention of relief etchingî (255). Given Blake's
ambitions after leaving Basire's shop, this seems like a fair assessment of
events, even though there is no documentary evidence to prove that Blake tried
to publish poetry through normal channels at this time. [29] Ý I am suggesting that illuminated poetry
evolved out of relief etching, which was itself generated by Blake's desire to
produce original prints in imitation of drawingsóor rather to produce original
drawings in metalóas well as to supplement his income. The technique broke less
dramatically from graphic conventions than it first appears because it was an
extension of an idea of printmaking that was already in effect and because it
joined other techniques that shared some of its practical, if not also
theoretical, objectives.
We must also be
careful before interpreting self-publication as evidence that Blake ìwas
plainly aspiring to become a literary institution unto himselfî (McGann, Critique
47), or to ìmake him[self] independent of publishers as well as of patrons, so
that he could achieve personal independence as both poet and painter at a
single blowî (Frye 120), or that ìBlake clearly had high hopes that
ëIlluminated printingí would make his fortuneî (Mitchell Composite 42). First, one
cannot assume that this was Blake's intention when one also assumes that he
printed illuminated books one at a time, since the latter assumption means that
productions costs for books like Innocence, which was advertised for five
shillings in 1793, could not be recouped for many years. Second, such
interpretations are suspect because they merely echo Alexander Gilchrist's
romanticized notions of artist and production. Blake lists in the prospectus
six illuminated books, priced between 3s. and 10s.6d. apiece, along with two
engravings and two ìsmall book[s] of Engravingsî (E 693). Gilchrist apparently
believed that the prospectus signaled a financial turning point. He assumed
that the illuminated books provided Blake with the ìprinciple means of support
through his future lifeî (1:69). Bentley corrects this assumption, noting that
Blake may have ìearned L600 with them, not counting expensesóperhaps six years'
income for thirty-eight years' workî (Blake Records 33 n. 1). But even this sum is far too generous, since
approximately 75 percent of Blake's stock, or 125 illuminated books (counting
copies of Innocence and Experience that were initially produced
or issued separately) of 168 extant or known copies of illuminated books
(discounting the broadsheets of On Homers Poetry and the Ghost of
Abel), were produced between 1789 and 1795 and probably sold at the
prices nearer those listed in the prospectus of 1793 than in the letter to
Dawson Turner in 1818 (see Book, chaps. 31, 33, and the appendix). Ý[30] By the time of the prospectus, Blake
had
produced twenty-two copies of Innocence (see Book, chap. 24). At five
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 L5.10s., minus the approximately L1.1s the book probably cost to
produce. [31] The income from the forty or so copies
of
the
other five books advertised in the prospectus would have realized under seventeen
pounds. The total value
of
his stock of books in 1793, in other words, was the equivalent of about forty
impressions of the Job and Edward and
Elinor engravings (at 12s. and 10s.6d. respectively), or the labor
required to engrave just one medium-size separate plate for the
publishersówhich was the equivalent of about three month's income. [32] Blake
also notes in the prospectus that his technique produced books at one-fourth
the cost
of conventional modes of publication, which was probably
true, but not because it was more efficient than letterpress.Ý Blake did not pay for labor, manuscripts,
or
designs.Ý No doubt his boast was made
to
encourage sales, indicating that Innocence,
for example, was actually worth one pound, a sign that his hand-printed and
hand-colored octavo-size book of poems, with only ì25 designs,î was indeed both
deluxe and rare and a real steal at the price.
Mitchell has suggested that ìBlake was
never able to mass-produce his books as he hoped, partly because the new method
was not so easy as he supposed, and partly because ërepublican artí was in the
1790s a dangerous commodityî (Composition
43).Ý But did Blake ever hope or expect
to make his fortune by mass-producing his books?Ý In 1793 Blake knew the strengths and weaknesses of his method,
he
knew the size of his stock, and he knew how to add.Ý While he no doubt hoped to earn some money as well as reputation,
he must also have realized that illuminated printing, no matter how large and
varied the stock, even after the costs of copper
plates were recouped, could never have provided a dependable source of income
at the prices he was charging, that its profits would always be supplemental
to income derived from painting, designing, and engraving. If Blake truly believed
that illuminated printing would ìdeliver [him] from his perennial poverty and
obscurity,î then, ironically, as Paul Mann concludes, Blake's ìprivate
technologiesî appear to have hindered rather than helped, in that his failure
to secure a large audience resulted from the limited capability of the
technologies, from his working outside the ìsocial machinery of production,î
and ultimately from ìhis project's own inexorable aesthetic and economic
self-absorptionî (ìApocalypseî 8-9, 22). But how large was Blake's envisioned
audience? The ìnumerous great works now in handî (E 693) and which had been
produced by that date amounted to as many as seventy-four copies of seven
titles (including eight copies of Experience, which was advertised but not yet printed). This
is not many books from the perspective of conventional publishing, but it is
a goodly number for a cottage industry and especially from the perspective of
a
painter. Blake appears to have advertised primarily to connoisseurs,
collectors, and other artists, all of whom, like Flaxman, Romney, Humphrey, and
Blake himself, collected books, paintings, and prints. Basically, this is the
same audience he sought for his watercolors, which by nature were usually
unique and stored in portfolios or hung in parlors of private homes. From the
perspective of the watercolorist, then, edition printing ensured that a set of
particular works would have a larger-than-usual audience, ìsufficient,î he told
Turner in 1818, to have gained a ìreputation as an Artist which was the chief
thing Intendedî (E 771). [33]
Even if Blake had
somehow grossly deceived himself regarding the financial benefits of his new
mode of printing, it is still mistaken to imply that he somehow ìsold outî
later on, when he began charging higher prices. To interpret Blake's burgeoning
awareness through William Hayley that ìThe Profits arising from Publications
are immenseî and Blake's hope ìto commence publication with many very
formidable worksî (E 726) as a rejection of or a ìswerv[ing] from his early
radical project,î and thus somehow a capitulation to the very ìcommercial
system of his own day . . . from which [he] early sought to gain his
independenceî (McGann, Critique 45, 44), is to ignore
a crucial fact of edition printing. The production of numerous copies of the
same illuminated book was motivated not by numerous single commissions but by
a
desire to build stock and hence by the very practical reasons of realizing
ìprofitsî (even if they were supplemental) and of securing an audience, however
limited in size. [34]Ý When Blake returned to printing illuminated
books in 1818, printing ten copies of six titles, he produced fewer works per
printing session, but the books were priced as series of colored prints or
paintings and had the potential to add substantially to Blake's declining
income (see Book, chap. 33). Even so,
these late printing sessions seem to have been motivated by at least one
commission, apparently used to finance the production of other titles. In other
words, inferring Blakes's motivation for early production sessions from that
for late ones is as fallacious as inferring his early practice from his late
practice and statements. At the time of the prospectus and for the next two
years, Blake used the technique of illuminated printing not because he hoped
or
expected to make his fortune but because it was appropriate to his temperament
and vision, and, as Smith states, it enabled him to avoid the ìexpense of
letterpressî (Bentley, Blake Records
460). Moreover, because Blakeís initial
investment per book was minimal, he did not require a large audience to make
a
profit
unlike the far more expensive self-publication projects of the 1790s (see
Bentley, ìGreat Illustrated-Bookî 61-62). On the other hand, this profit was
so
small that the early editions of illuminated books appear to have been financed
by Blake's earnings as a commercial engraver.
If illuminated
impressions were grouped according to editions or printing sessions, then one
would see that changes of printing ink indicate issues of an edition and that
colors, despite being placed differently, were the same and applied in the same
manner. Instead of being exactly repeatable, such
impressions are slight variants of one another, forcing us to ask: Is a raw
sienna copy of Visions heavier than
a
yellow ochre copy? Is a pink Theotorman in Visions
plate 7 warmer than a green one? Is a blue one sadder or more contrite than a
yellow one? Was the change in robe color motivated by something other than
Blake thinking he already had enough pink and green Theotormons? Was it even
Blake's decision? Indeed. had the same colors always been placed exactly the
same, the job of coloring would have been tedious for the Blakes and would have
taken longer to finish than coloring freely or even in loose imitation of a
model supplied by Blake. Jonathan Richardson's comment about how true artists
copy models, whether other drawings or nature, is relevant: ìEvery man will
naturally and unavoidably mix something of himself in all he does if he copies
with any degree of liberty: If he attempts to follow his original servilely and
exactly, that cannot but have a stiffness which will easily distinguish what
is
so done from what is performed naturally, easily, and without restraintî
(Richardson 230; also quoted in Rogers 1:72). [35] In
other
words, variations among
and edition's copies
cannot be read as
revisions, for they are technically, aesthetically, and psychologically
inevitable among an edition of impressions colored by artists, rather than by
colorists hired to wash prints systematically and strictly according to the
artist's prototypeóand even there variations are inevitable. [36]
While Blake knew that
his process produced variations necessarily, the abstract object of ìvariationî
was not in itself Blake's primary intention. His intention when printing and
reprinting was, as he told Turner to ìtake care that [the books] shall be done
at least as well as any l have yet Producedî (E 771). As noted, the Blakes were
not graphic purists; they were not interested in making an edition's copies
look exactly the same, but neither were they interested in making them look completely
different. The technical evidence demonstrates that Blake was far more
catholic than a
purist like Landseer and far more practical and efficient in his printmaking
than has been heretofore imagined. He may
not have been a very good businessman, professional in the manner of Boydell,
Bartolozzi, or Woollett, but then neither is the average professional in any
field.
WORKS CITED
The Artist's Repository and Drawing Magazine. 4 vols. London, 1784-1786.
Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William
Blake. 2 vols. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1981.
Plowman, Dorothy, ed. The Book of Urizen [copy A.]. London: J. M. Dent
and Sons, 1929.
NOTES
[1] Lily Zimmermann, describing Songs of
Innocence and Experience copy BB for Christieís Newsletter (November 1988),
summarizes these assumptions concisely: ìBecause Blake made the engravings and
printed the copies of Songs himself, it was an expensive and time-consuming
project.Ý He could not afford to produce
these illuminated books except upon individual order for his private customersî
(4).
[2] For
a detailed analysis of edition printing and coloring and Mrs. Blake's role in
these processes, see my Blake and the
Idea of the Book, chaps. 12, 14, and
16, forthcoming from Princeton University Press and referred to as Book
throughout this article.
[3] For
similar comparisons, see Myra Glazer and Gerda Norvig's essay, ìBlake's
Although he approached the issue with slightly different
assumptions about production, Essick reached similar conclusions regarding the
meaning of differences among illuminated prints anti books, that they do not
necessarily reflect revision but are the inevitable result of Blake's mode of
production. His articles on the subject ought to be read by any one interested
in reading Blake's illuminated books. See ìMaterials,î ìTeaching the Variations
in Songs,î and ìHow Blake's Body Means.î This last article is a penetrating
response to Carr's ìIlluminated Printing: Toward a Logic of Difference.î Both
works are in Hilton and Voglerís Unnam'd
Forms.
[4] Carr
associates difference in illuminated books with Derrida's differýnce and believes that ìvariations . . . help to define the
conditions of representation within illuminated printing. They point to an
ongoing, open-ended production of meanings rather than a re-presentation of an
original meaningî (Cart 190). For a discussion about whether Derrida's concept
has been adequately understood by Carr and other critics, see Dan Miller's
review of Unnam'd Forms.
[5] The
idea that Blake ìloathed monotonyî cannot be inferred from variation among
illuminated prints. It could be argued that Blake agreed with Reynolds that
monotony was a feature of the grand style. Reynolds stated that ìgrandeur of
effectî can be produced ìby making the colours very distinct and forcible, such
as we see in those of Rome and Florence,î where the absence of chiaroscuro or
modulation of colors makes ìsimplicity . . . the presiding principle . . .
Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony; and the distinct blue,
red, and yellow . . . have that effect of grandeur which was intendedî (61).
Blake responded, ìThese are Fine & Just Notionsî (E 650).
[6] From
a letter of 31 March 1922 to Bernard Quaritch, the bookdealer, shown to me by
G. E. Bentley, Jr. The printability of an adequately etched relief plate
depended on ink being properly made, on the plate being properly inked, and on
the dabber being handled skillfully. As ink splatters in illuminated
impressions evince, even shallows relatively deep will be blemished if the
surface is poorly inked. By conventional standards then or now, such
impressions would be considered poor. In fact, impressions were said to be
ìeither good or bad, according to the truth with which they represent the work
on the plate: if they are too faint, or too full, they are equally bad; the
first being deficient in force, the latter in clearness; which two qualities
ought to unite in a perfect impressionî (Artist's
Repository 4:102). Yet in illuminated printing poorly inked impressions,
which are by no means rare, do not signify an unskilled hand, the work of Mrs.
Blake, or a failure of the inking tool. They signify at the least that Blake
was less fastidious than his contemporaries and at most was willing to redefine
the acceptable in graphic art.
[7] While
Carr and I may disagree about what constitutes a significant variant. I believe
we are both trying, as Carr notes, ìto direct attention to graphic qualities
of
illuminated pages too often ignored or dismissedî and that to do this
necessarily means our having ìto rethink and redefine our critical and editorial
proceduresî (191 n. 12).
Despite his claim that the subtlest changes in the
verbal-visual sign system are ìradical,î significant, and deliberated (182),
Carrís main example of a significant variation is representational and not at all dependent on comparisons with other
copies of itself or on its difference from the plate image. He correctly notes
that the
adult figure in ìThe Little Boy foundî appears female in some copies and male
in others and that such difference is not explained by Blake's supposed
preference for an androgynous Christ (194). At issue, as Carr notes, is the
validity of critical systems of interpretation that predetermine meaning and
refuse to acknowledge variations or versions in favor of an ideal text. He is
right that different gender (like race in ìThe Little Black Boyî) could make
for different versions of the poem, since in the one the figure functions
naturalistically and in the other symbolically. Knowing the modes and dates of
production, the editor can ask: were impressions with the male and female
features printed in the same session'? Were they colored by Blake and/or Mrs.
Blake?
[8] Blake
worked on versions of the Last Judgment
from 1806 to the end of his life. A watercolor version commissioned by the
countess of Egremont in 1807 was the subject of a letter to Ozias Humphry, of
which three drafts are extant (Keynes, Letters
131-135). Another watercolor version (ca. 1809) corresponds to most but not all
the details of the Notebook account,
which raises the possibility that the description is of the untraced ìfrescoî
(i.e., distempea) version that Blake was working on at the time of his death,
and that he apparently had been working on for many years (see Butlin
2:639-648).
[9] ìWorking
up Effect is more an operation of Indolence than the Making out of the Parts
. . . I speak here of Rembrandts & Rubens & Reynolds's Effect.óFor Real
Effect. is Making out the Parts & it is Nothing Else but Thatî (E 639). For
a discussion of Blake's drawing style, its relation to sketching, and his views
of sketches and ìfirst thoughts,î see Book chap.
4.
[10] The
idea that Art involves the conscious and deliberate organization of imprecise
markings is suggested as early as The
Marriage of Heaven and
Hell (1790), by Reason's building or ideas supplied
by Desire and by its being the circumference of energy (plates 6, 4).
[11] Mellor,
for example, argues that Blake chose his linear style because it was the most
appropriate for communicating mental images to others (237). That line was
always philosophically important to Blake, and especially so after 1800 (see
Paley), is not in question; that its meaning or use was predicated on the
nature of his mental images rather than vice versa, is questionable.
[12] In
the prospectus Blake also states that his technique ìexceeds in elegance all
former methodsî (E 692). According to Reynolds, ìThe Venetian is indeed the
most splendid of the schools of eleganceî (67), to which Blake responded:
ìVulgarity & not EleganceóThe Word Elegance ought to be applied to Forms. Ýnot to Coloursî (E 652).
[13] According
to Reynolds, ìto give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling or
artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints is to be
avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which
a breadth of uniform, and simple colour, will very much contributeî (61).
Essick
has defined ìuniformî as signifying the work of a single mind (William Blake, Printmaker 119).
In light of Mrs. Blake's participation in the production process, this sense
of
the word is probably inaccurate.
[14] If extant work represents the complete
printing runs, then by the time of the prospectus Blake had produced eleven
copies of America, thirteen copies
of
Thel, twenty-two copies of Innocence, four copies of Marriage, five copies of Gate of Paradise, and eleven copies of Visions, and he was about to print eight
copies of Experience (See Book, chaps. 24-28).
[15] More recently, Essick argues that
variation is not a ìconscious violationî of the norm but the inevitable result
of Blakeís mode of production (ìMaterialsî 859), a result intentionally not
suppressed but rather encouraged and taken creative advantage of (William Blake and the Language of Adam
190).Ý As noted, Blake was not so
obsessed with clean copy to be much bothered with ìSpots & Blemishes[,]
which are beauties and not faultsî (E 576).
[16] See
also Phillips, who defines illuminated printing as a ìrebellion against
conventional printing and publishingî (ìManuscript Draftî 35-36 and again in
ìSongsî 220-221); Easson, who believes
illuminated printing was motivated by Blake's desire to escape the ìdivisions
.
. . between author, illustrator, engraver, printer, and publisherî
characteristic of conventional book production (35); and Essick, who had argued
that the ìrugged lineation in the illuminated booksî was ìone result of Blake's
reaction to reproductive engravingsî (ìTraditionsî 66). From a postmodernist
view, graphic difference could be thought even to represent the cultural or
psychic diversity reason seeks to repress in its desire for order and
uniformity (see McGowan 6, 207). For the view that Blake was ìa small-scale
entrepreneur,î an artist who ìincarnates the marriage of neoclassicism and the
nascent Industrial Revolutionî in positive and creative ways and whose ìnotion
of a graphic cutting edge was identified in his mind with craft and industryî
see chapter 4 of Boime's fine historically grounded analysis.
[17] George
Michael Moser was the Keeper of the Royal Academy, and apparently one of ìThe
Modern Chalcographic Connoisseurs & Amateurs [who] admire only the work of
the journeyman Picking out of whites & blacks in what is calld Tints[;]
they despise drawing which despises them in return. They see only whether every
thing is coverd down but one spot of lightî (E 577).
[18] Reynolds
characterizes the Venetian manner as ìa mere struggle without effect; a tale told by an ideot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing,î and as having ìdebauch[ed] the young and
inexperienced,î and ìturn[ed] off the attention of the connoisseur and of the
patron of art, as well as that of the painter, from those higher excellencies
of which the art is capableî (64, 67).
[19] Blake responds with a firm ìNonsenseî to Reynolds's claim ìthat the
[paint brush] is the instrument by which . . . to obtain eminenceî (E 646).
Blake's opinion of flashy brush work is revealed most clearly in his attacks
on
Rosa: ìHandling is Labour & Trick [,] Salvator Rosa employd Journeymenî (E
655), and ìSalvator Rosa was precisely what he Pretended Not to be. his
Pictures. are high Labourd pretensions to Expeditious Workmanship. He was the
Quack Doctor of Painting His Roughnessess & Smoothnesses. are the
Production of Labour & Trick. As to Imagination he was totally without Anyî
(E 654).
For Blake, Rosa's style of painting was analogous to the
blot and blur drawing technique of Gilpin and Cozens, what Gilpin referred to
as the ìbold and free mannerî (Three Essays 17): ìfreeî refers to a
stroke that has ìno appearance of constraint. It is bold, when a part is given for the whole, which it cannot fail of
suggesting. This is the laconism of genius. But sometimes it may be free, and
yet suggest only how easily a line, which means nothing, may be executed. Such
a stroke is not bold, but impudentî (l7). This last statement
appears to have been a nod to Reynolds, who warned students to avoid the
seduction of execution or mechanical felicity.
[20] Blake
associated Woollett's practice with the Venetian and his own with the
Florentine, although in fact Blake's style was far closer to Woollett's than
to that of Italian Renaissance engravers like Raimondi or Ghisi (see
Essick, William Blake, Printmaker 199ff). It was
only late in his life, through the influence of Linnell, that Blake began to
rethink his own graphic training and effect a style corresponding to his
earlier theories. Dennis Read reminds us that Woollett and Strange were
attacked in part because of their association with Cromek, who Blake believed
had lied to him about engraving the Grave
designs and stole his idea for the engraving of Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims (69ff).Ý As Blake himself stated: ìResentment for Personal Injuries has
had some share in this Public Addressî (E 574).
[21] All prints, including line engravings,
show the means of production, either the artist's through imitation (or
facsimiles), the colorist's, or the printmaker's through translation. Indeed,
the primary reason Landseer hated facsimiles was that they required the
complete erasure of the graphicóor mechanicalócode and thus the hand of the
engraver. He abhorred color prints (impressions printed in colors) and colored
prints (impressions colored by hand) most of all and for the same reason.
[22] Advocating the aesthetic of the sketch
but not its form raises theoretical and technical problems for an artist
committed to line, a stylistic feature associated with last thoughts and
reason. Aesthetically, Blake needed to reground neoclassical form on romantic
concepts of imagination and vision, a theoretical regrounding thoroughly
investigated by Eaves in William Blake's Theory of Art. It is manifest
in
Blake's assertion that invention and execution were inseparable, and in drawing
style in which firm outlines are extensions of and not departures from first
thoughts. For a discussion of these problems, see Book, chap. 4.
[23] Aquatint had become the medium of
choice for the very popular books of picturesque and topographical views,
starting
with Sandby's 12 Views in Aquatinta from Drawings taken on the spot in South Wales
(1775). It was also used extensively in books of facsimiles, such as
Rowlandson's Imitations of Modern Drawings after Gainsborough, Sawrey
Gilpin, and Others (1784-1788).
[24] Landseer engraved in the style of
Woollett, which he held as the paradigm. From Blake's perspective, this style
seemed to subordinate line to tone and to dominate the print market. From
Landseer's perspective, it was an overtly linear art losing the market to
authentic tonal processes like stipple and aquatint.
[25] The dark shapes in aquatint are created
by their being bitten longer in acid than the areas around them, which are
ìstopped outî with an acid-resistant varnish to prevent them from being etched.
Thus, dark shapes are formed indirectly, whereas light shapes actually show the
shape of the brush used to stop out.
[26] In addition to Blake and Gainsborough,
Stubbs, Barry, Rowlandson, Mortimer, Crome, Cotman, and Sandby all produced
original prints in small editions and with variations. In addition to
Gainsborough and Cozens, John Hassell also used sugar lift. In fact, Hassell
appears to have independently invented the technique in 1791, though he did not
publish until 1811 his Calcographia: or, the Art of Multiplying with Perfection, Drawings, after the Manner of Chalk,
Black lead Pencil, and Pen and Ink. On the title page Hassell
reported having been ìhonoured with a Medal and Thirty Guineas by The Society
of Arts etc. etc. etc.îÝ ìCalcographiaî
was a technique that Hassell believed provided amateurs with the means of producing
ìfac similesî of their own works (27) and would induce ìmany of our first rate
artists to give to posterity their sketchesî (title page). The engraver C. N.
Cochin responded similarly to chalk engraving, which was invented in 1740 to
reproduce chalk drawings: ìAt last it was possible for an amateur of a student,
living in the remotest parts of the country, to copy drawings by the great
Masters!î (quoted in Gross 152).
[27] Wordsworth's
experiments in prosody reflect a similar move toward the simple and autographic.
As Robert
Mayo has argued, Wordsworth put to original and brilliant use material that had
already become conventional.Ý More
significantly, Wordsworth was the first important poet to claim that these
simple forms were serious art, an
idea ìsubversiveî and ìradicalî to those holding what he dismissed as
preconceived notions of poetry, but an idea that obviously had an audience.
Like most dialectics, like Lanseer's, Blake's, and our own, the one presented
by Wordsworth in the Preface does not readily admit to grays.
[28] Only color-printed impressions of
the first state are extant, and the signature is presumably obscured by
the color
printing (see Essick, Separate Plates
24-29).
[29] Blake's
Poetical Sketches was published in
1783, but it appears to have been a project orchestrated by Blake's friends and
not by Blake himself. But whether Blake encouraged or submitted to the project,
it is important to note that twelve of the twenty-two extant copies seem to
have been in Blake's possession, uncut and unstitched, at the time of his death,
suggesting that ìhe did not show much interestî in the book (Bentley, Blake Books 346,
345). There is no documentary evidence that Blake sought out bookdealers to
distribute or sell Poetical Sketches,
or that he approached publishers with the new lyrical poems that were to become
Songs of Innocence, at least three
of
which were included in An Island in the Moon (ca. 1784).
[30] The
huge increase in the 1818 and 1827 prices relative to those of 1793 reflect
a change in the idea of the book, from a book of poems to a book of painted
prints. For example, the L3.3s. for Innocence in 1818 translates as
approximately 2s.5d. per print, which was the average price for an octavo-sized
hand-colored print according to print catalogues of Boydell, Macklin and other
print dealers. We do not know when Blake began charging the higher prices; the
earliest known example is 1806, when he sold Songs copy E to Thomas Butts for L6.6s. (Bentley, Blake Books 414).
[31] In Blake and the Idea of the Book, I
estimate Blake's production costs per book by focusing primarily on the amount
of paper and metal used per edition and their costs. What emerged was a pricing
formula that was roughly the same as that used by conventional publishers:
retail price about five times the cost of production (Gaskell 179; see Book, chap,
24).
[32] Blake
received eighty pounds from Macklin to engrave The Fall of Rosamond after Stothard in 1783
(Bentley, Blake Records 569).
In
1799 Blake told Trusler that his rate for engravings was thirty guineas (E
703). The idea that twenty-two pounds was equal to about three monthsí income
is based on The Book of Trades
of 1804, which notes that a copperplate printer earned forty shillings a week
(116). An engraver's income would fluctuate more than a printer's,
compositorís, or most others in the trade because the work was commissioned
free-lance. It seems, though, that the Blakes would have required an average
income of two pounds a week and that they averaged that from
1800 through 1810 (Blake Records
606).
[33] Actually,
Blake says that ìthe few I have Printed & Sold are suuficient to have
gained me great reputation,î and he describes illuminated books as
ìunprofitable enoughî to him but ìExpensive to the Buyerî (E 771). As Book chapter l6 points out, these
statements, made twenty-five years after the prospectus and when Blake was just
beginning to show interest in reprinting his early booksóand when his financial
situation had changed dramatically (see also chapter 33)ómust be read carefully The
number of books produced and sold by 1818 was greater than implied
(approximately 139 and 125 respectively), though that is not something Blake
was likely to remember, and his reputation was probably smaller. Blake seems
intent on convincing Turner, a Yorkshire banker and well-known collector, that
the works that he inquired about were rare, beautiful, and fairly priced.
[34] One
would not accuse Fuseli of such capitulation when he complained that he was
tired of ìcontributing to make the public drop their gold into purses not my
ownî and planned ìto lay hatch, and crack an egg for myself tooî (Knowles
1:174-175), an egg that became the Milton Gallery. Indeed, it would have been
surprising had Blake remained impervious to such ambition when so many of his
friends were planning commercial projects and the illustrated book was in its
golden period (see Boime, chap. 4; Bentley. ìGreat Illustrated-Bookî).
[35] Sir
George Beaumont says much the same: ìThe servile imitator seems to me to
mistake the body for the soul;
and will never touch the heartî (quoted in Gilpin, Two Essays 26).
[36] Coloring prints by hand will always produce variations unless stencils are used. The Manchester Etching Workshop's facsimiles of Songs copy B were handcolored, intentionally like their model, yet no two impressions are exactly alike since no two washes can be laid in exactly the same (see my ìRecreating Blakeî). The commercially colored copies of Blake's Night Thoughts demonstrate this as well. At least fourteen copies (colored ca. 1797) appear to be modeled after the same copy colored by Blake, but they show far greater variation among copies than the Manchester facsimiles. In other words, far greater artistic license was ìexercised by the commercial coloristsî (Grant 303 n. 3; see also Lange 134-136; Bentley, Blake Books 645-646, 956, and ìGreat Illustrated-Bookî 82-88). Taking liberties with the model may reflect the confidence of good colorists, but it may also reflect financial considerations. The more closely one adheres to a model, the more slowly one works.