Issues) for Institutions
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
/ ..far j •\ tf ?-■ *&* F&snU TED QUART QSP* 68 F/7 NUMBER 4 BBS liVC 1984 %Z^ ****•■ ' •* : .-fl^r BLAKE AS ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY SPRING 1984 CONTRIBUTORS G.E. BENTLEY, JR. of Wai Wen Xi, Fudan Daxue, Shanghai, and University College, University of Toronto is currently concerned with The Great Illustrated-Book Publishers of the 1790s and with Poems Recently At• tributed to William Blake. MARTIN BUTLIN is Keeper of the Historic British Col• AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY 68 lection at the Tate Gallery, London, author of numerous books on Blake and Turner, and frequent contributor to VOLUME 17 NUMBER 4 SPRING 1984 Blake. CONTENTS = V.A. DE LUCA is Professor of English at Erindale Col• 124 An Analysis of the Watercolor Technique and lege, University of Toronto. Materials of William Blake by Anne Maheux 130 Some Unrecorded States, Printings, and Impres• sions of Blake's Graphic Works by Robert N. Essick ROBERT N. ESSICK (Professor of English, University of 139 A Supplement to The Separate Plates of William California, Riverside) is currently writing a catalogue of Blake: A Catalogue by Robert N. Essick the Blake collection at the Huntington Library to be published by the Huntington in 1985. MINUTE PARTICULARS 145 Cennino, Cumberland, Blake and Early Painting NELSON HILTON is Blake's review editor. Techniques by Joan K. Stemmler 149 Iris & Morpheus: Investigating Visual Sources for Jerusalem 14 by Judith Ott GUJING-YU is a Chinese student currently working on an 154 The 1821 Edwards Catalogue by G.E. Bentley, Jr. M.A. in English poetry at Fudan University. Gujing-yu 157 Unlisted Articles on Blake Published in China by writes: "Blake, an original poet, artist, and thinker, is one Gujing-yu of my favorites. To get a clearer view of Blake in my 159 Paintings and Drawings of William Blake (1981): stud[ies], I have tried to trace Blake criticism in China, as well as in the West, and part of that research (1957-1982) Some Minor Additions by Martin Butlin is this rather dry, skeletal essay. In piecing together this retrospective work, accuracy, not comment nor a mood to REVIEWS brighten or darken, either as a 'Song of Innocence' or a 160 Blake e Dante, an exhibition organized by Corrado 'Song of Experience,' is my aim." Gizzi, reviewed by Martin Butlin 161 Blake: Innocence and Experience, a play by Elliott Hayes, reviewed by V.A. De Luca ANNE MAHEUX is presently assistant conservator of 162 The British Neo-Romantics, and exhibition held at graphic arts in the Restoration Conservation Laboratory, Fischer Fine Art Ltd., reviewed by Martin Butlin National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. She received her Masters in Art Conservation at Queen's University, 164 David Punter, Blake, Hegel and Dialectic, reviewed Kingston, Ontario in 1981 and served an internship in by Nelson Hilton paper conservation at the Center for Conservation and 169 Robert J. Bertholf and Annette S. Levitt, eds., Technical Studies, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University William Blake and the Moderns, reviewed by in 1981-82, where the research on Blake's watercolor pig• Paul Mann ments was carried out. 172 H.T. Dickinson, ed., The Political Works of Thomas Spence, reviewed by G.E. Bentley, Jr. 175 Newsletter PAUL MANN is a Mellon Post-Doctoral Instructor at the California Institute of Technology. © 1984 Morris Eaves and Morton Paley SPRING 1984 BLAKE AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY JUDITH OTT, Art History Instructor at a small New England College, has contributed to Blake in the past. INFORMATION At present she is putting the finishing touches on her Ph.D. dissertation of seven years research at The Ohio Editorial Assistants in charge: Marcy Erickson. State University on the artistic sources for all 100 of the Editorial Assistants: Leslie Donovan, Robin Tawney, plates of Jerusalem. Chapel Petty, Univ. of New Mexico. Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly is published under JOAN KOSTER STEMMLER is a Ph.D. candidate in the the sponsorship of the Department of English, Univer• Department of the History of Art of the University of sity of New Mexico. Pennsylvania and is a lecturer at the Philadelphia College of Art. Subscriptions are $18.00 for 1 year, 1 volume (4 issues) for institutions. Special rates for individuals, $15.00 for 1 year, 1 volume (4 isssues). For all foreign addresses we required $3.00 postal surcharge unless subscriber requests airmail delivery which requires a EDITORS $10.00 postal surcharge. U.S. currency or interna• tional money order if possible. Make checks payable to Blake / An Illustrated Quarterly. Address all Editors: Morris Eaves, Univ. of New Mexico, and Morton subscription orders and related communications to D. Paley, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley. Marcy Erickson, Blake, Dept. of English, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. 87131, USA. Bibliographer: Thomas L. Minnick, Ohio State Univ. Some back issues are available. Address Marcy Review Editor: Nelson Hilton, Univ. of Georgia, Erickson for a list of issues and prices. Athens. Manuscripts are welcome. Send two copies, typed Associate Editor for Great Britain: Frances A. Carey, and documented according to the forms suggested in Assistant Curator, Department of Prints and Drawings, the MLA Style Sheet, 2nd. ed., to either of the British Museum. editors: Morris Eaves, Dept. of English, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131; Morton D. Production Office: Morris Eaves, Department of English, Paley, Dept. of English, Univ. of California, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM 87131, Berkeley, CA 94720. Telephone 505/277-3103. Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University of International Serial Number is 0006-453x. BlakeIAn California, Berkeley, CA 94720. Illustrated Quarterly is indexed in the Modern Thomas L. Minnick, University College, Ohio State Language Association's International Bibliography, University, 1050 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210. the Modern Humanities Research Association's An• Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University of nual Bibliography of English Language and Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Literature, English Language Notes' annual Roman• Frances A. Carey, Department of Prints and Drawings tic Bibliography, ART bibliographies MODERN, Amer• British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WClB ican Humanities Index, and the Arts and Humanities 3DG, England. Citation Index. PAGH 124 BLAKE AS ILLUSmmD QUARTERLY SPRING 1984 An Analysis of the Watercolor Technique and Materials of William Blake BY ANNE MAHEUX Attention has only recently been paid to the technical this was found to be unsuitable for rich coloring, and only analysis of Blake's art materials. William Blake was a wise good for executing thin washes.5 craftsman, undoubtedly familiar with contemporary ac• Traditionally, the finely ground pigments were mixed counts of artists' materials and techniques. Formal with water to which a fixative had been added. At least analysis of Blake's watercolor materials and techniques, one eighteenth century artist's manual, the Handmaid to 1 however, is almost nonexistent. That Blake employed the Arts, notes the tendency of gum arabic to crack and unconventional materials for watercolor painting is peel after drying. Another binder, gum Senegal, had a asserted by his biographers. A number of Blake's contem• tendency to retain moisture, so it was sometimes mixed poraries also experimented with the medium, but none with gum arabic to attain a binder of desirable consist• pursued his particular methods. The current study pro• ency.6 Similarly, honey or candy sugar was also added to vides an overview of the methods and materials employed gum arabic to prevent the paint film from cracking. by Blake, comparing them with traditional methods of ear• Blake worked mostly in watercolor, although he ex• ly nineteenth-century watercolor painting. Using pain• perimented with a few other techniques. He dabbled tings from the Fogg Art Museum's collection, technical briefly with oils, and rejected them early on in his artistic analysis of the pigments included on Blake's palette was career. Tatham reported that Blake never got the hang of undertaken. Selection of the paintings was based on the using oils, complaining that "the colours sunk so much availability of pigment for sampling, and on providing a that they ceased to retain the brilliancy and luxury that cross section of work that represents the majority of the he intended. No definite line, no positive end to the colors used by Blake in both early and late works in the form could even with the greatest of Ingenuity be obtained, Fogg's collection. all his lines dwindled and the clearness melted, and from these circumstances it harassed him . "7. According to TECHNIQUE AND MATERIALS Gilchrist, Blake was "vehemently opposed to oils —they Frederick Tatham, one of Blake's earliest biographers, re• did not please him or comport with his style."8 Aside 2 ports that Blake executed his first watercolors in 1777. At from these somewhat emotional outbursts recorded by his this time in England, the watercolor medium was not biographers, Blake no doubt probably found oils an ex• credited with the same esteem as oil painting. In view of ceedingly difficult medium to master purely from tech• this, earlier and contemporary watercolorists endeavored nical limitations such as handling and drying properties. to imitate the effect of oil painting to gain a more respec• 3 With most of his watercolors, Blake started with a table reputation for the medium. preliminary drawing in graphite or pen and ink. This pro• Prepared watercolor paints became available as early vided the foundation for the finished watercolor. In all of as 1780, when soluble cakes of machine-ground pigments the watercolors examined, the preliminary drawing is still were marketed by Reeves. Despite their quick acceptance visible to varying degrees. by artists, the dry color cakes were criticized for being 4 One of the earliest watercolors by Blake in the Fogg's hard and gritty, and washes were difficult to work up collection is Cain Fleeing from the Wrath of God, c.