Friday, May 23, 2014

William Blake Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Among the art from the Romantic period, William Blake paintings are considered to be among the most original. As a boy, William studied art under the tutelage of Henry Pars. The next five years saw him as an apprentice to a commercial engraver in the person of James Basire. From there, he entered the Royal Academy School for further studies on engraving. William was 22 years old.

Nature Revolves, but Man Advances was one of the earliest William Blake paintings. It was a resultant from his private studying of medieval and Renaissance art. Raphael, Michaelangelo and Durer were among his idols. He was on the trail of producing timeless, Gothic art, representative of Christian spirituality, done with poetic ingenuity.

By the 1790s, William Blake paintings consisted of a series of large color prints notable for their massive size and iconic designs. They were his most ambitious work as a visual artist. Of the 12 known designs, many of the subjects function as pairs. These subjects were drawn from the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and Newton.

The technique used in William Blake paintings was described as fresco. It is form of monotype, using oil and tempera paints mixed with chalks. The designs are painted on a flat surface, that is, a copperplate or millboard and finished in ink and watercolour. This made each impression, rare and unique.

There were about 50 tempera paintings and more than 80 watercolors completed from 1799 to 1890. These William Blake paintings from that period were a series of Bible illustrations concentrating on Old Testament prefigurations of Christ, the life of Christ and apocalyptic subjects from the Book of Revelation.

The trajectory that William Blake paintings took as far as development is concerned is towards the inner self. He concentrated on the journeys that the mind appears to take through its imagination. Physically, William never travelled outside of Britain except for a brief period on the southern coast of England.




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