Blake

William Blake, (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) a poet, painter and printmaker. All the p's. I'm sure that his is a familiar face. William Blake is one of the most influential image makers of all time. His visionary radicalism was probably best expressed in his bookworks, including the Songs of Innocence and Experience.







Aside from the obvious level of innovation and the sheer quality of writing what I find fascinating about these books is the integration of text and image. Thinking back to the Mayan codices specifically and the relationship between the bodies of image/text [ideograms/graphemes etc] I am curious to know what Blake was attempting to do to the text. For the Mayans and perhaps the Egyptians the link between the image/text and the pure image was obvious, but the development of the Roman alphabet and its evolution away from its visually representative ancestor means that it has become an abstracted form. In some ways Blake appears to be forcing its regression, taking it back to its own Garden of Paradise. It highlights the inherent tension but inevitable symbiosis between image and text, again this is an issue for Illustration I think. It is for these reasons that I think Blake's work is highly significant in the development of the subject.



A contemporary of Blake, Thomas Bewick, ornithologist and engraver.