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| Wikipedia Commons Illustrations of the Book of Job Plate 2 |
The Engravings of William Blake by Archibald G B Russell was published in in
1912. In the first two sentences of his book Russell states,
"From his childhood Blake was in love with the engraver's art.
It was his chief means of becoming acquainted with the old
masters." The detailed commentary which Russell gives for many
of Blake's engravings adds to one's appreciation for Blake's subject
matter and skill in presenting it.
On page 48 Russell writes of Blake engraving illustrations for the Book of Job:
"The crowning labour of Blake's life, his engraved illustrations of the " Book of Job," had its origin in the last commission which he received from his old friend and patron, Thomas Butts, for whom, in or about 1820, the designs were first executed in a series of twenty-five water-colour drawings. In 1823 he began, at the instance of Linnell, to make a duplicate set of the designs with a view to engraving them. The work was published in 1826, the year before his death. Full particulars of the volume will be found in the Catalogue (No. 33). It is, taken as a whole, beyond question Blake's greatest achievement as an engraver. From early days he had been deeply moved by the history of the patriarch, which he would often parallel by the course of his own life. The subjects of two of his prints, the impressive line-engraving published in 1793 and the beautiful lithograph designed some fifteen years later, had already been drawn from it. But since those days his style as an engraver had undergone a considerable change. He had by this time entirely freed himself from the hard, mechanical manner which he had acquired from Basire. Much had in the meantime been learned by him from the great engravers whose works were represented in his own print collection. His attention, also, had lately been especially directed by Linnell to the works of the Italian engravers of the sixteenth century, with particular regard to Marc Antonio and Giulio Bonasone. With both of these he had of course been previously well acquainted. J. T. Smith recalls in his memoir how often he had "seen him admire and heard him expatiate upon the beauties of Marc Antonio," and in Blake's own writings this master is several times mentioned with enthusiasm. Linnell appears himself to have been the possessor of a number of Marc Antonio's prints, and he had also in his collection an example of Bonasone's large print of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," which was doubtless an object of Blake's frequent study. The influence of these models is the predominant one in the development of Blake's latest style of engraving, which, however, none the less remains a strictly individual means of expression and shows no traces of any direct imitation. In the "Job" he further reveals a grandeur of invention and a concentration of expression beyond all his past attainment, and truly, as Ruskin claimed for him in this connection, "in expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is" here "greater than Rembrandt."
"The crowning labour of Blake's life, his engraved illustrations of the " Book of Job," had its origin in the last commission which he received from his old friend and patron, Thomas Butts, for whom, in or about 1820, the designs were first executed in a series of twenty-five water-colour drawings. In 1823 he began, at the instance of Linnell, to make a duplicate set of the designs with a view to engraving them. The work was published in 1826, the year before his death. Full particulars of the volume will be found in the Catalogue (No. 33). It is, taken as a whole, beyond question Blake's greatest achievement as an engraver. From early days he had been deeply moved by the history of the patriarch, which he would often parallel by the course of his own life. The subjects of two of his prints, the impressive line-engraving published in 1793 and the beautiful lithograph designed some fifteen years later, had already been drawn from it. But since those days his style as an engraver had undergone a considerable change. He had by this time entirely freed himself from the hard, mechanical manner which he had acquired from Basire. Much had in the meantime been learned by him from the great engravers whose works were represented in his own print collection. His attention, also, had lately been especially directed by Linnell to the works of the Italian engravers of the sixteenth century, with particular regard to Marc Antonio and Giulio Bonasone. With both of these he had of course been previously well acquainted. J. T. Smith recalls in his memoir how often he had "seen him admire and heard him expatiate upon the beauties of Marc Antonio," and in Blake's own writings this master is several times mentioned with enthusiasm. Linnell appears himself to have been the possessor of a number of Marc Antonio's prints, and he had also in his collection an example of Bonasone's large print of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," which was doubtless an object of Blake's frequent study. The influence of these models is the predominant one in the development of Blake's latest style of engraving, which, however, none the less remains a strictly individual means of expression and shows no traces of any direct imitation. In the "Job" he further reveals a grandeur of invention and a concentration of expression beyond all his past attainment, and truly, as Ruskin claimed for him in this connection, "in expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is" here "greater than Rembrandt."
Public Address, Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims, (E 573)
"I hope this Print will redeem my Country from this Coxcomb
situation & shew that it is only some Englishmen [P 56] and not
All who are thus ridiculous in their Pretences Advertizements in
Newspapers are no proof of Popular approbation. but often the
Contrary A Man who Pretends to Improve Fine Art Does not know
what Fine Art is Ye English Engravers must come down from your
high flights ye must condescend to study Marc Antonio & Albert
Durer. Ye must begin before you attempt to finish or improve &
when you have begun you will know better than to think of
improving what cannot be improvd"
.
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