William Blake's printing process [video]
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I did post-graduate study of Blake in school, and have one of his engravings tatooed on my leg. There’s some interesting context that the video doesn’t have time for:
He said that his engraving and printing technique was dictated to him in a dream by his dead brother Robert. It is, as the video says, without precedent and immensely time-consuming.
He printed almost entirely in orange, not the black that the video showed. Orange was his favorite color. The light printing also enabled him to paint over the printings, something he did before selling each work.
He made and sold very few copies in his lifetime. He printed only about 50 copies of his most popular work, “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” His largest work, Jerusalem, has only five copies with only “Copy E” being fully colored.
Very few of his engraved plates still exist. He was poor and copper was expensive, so after printing he would often melt his plates to make new works.
You can see all of this in a single plate, the 4rd sheet of Jerusalem — http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/jerusalem.e?descId=jerusale...
Imagine engraving that tiny cursive by hand, and reversed. The work he put into what he did was astounding.
I mean, there are no shortage of similar examples from Van Gogh to Tesla, but Christ... Our species really needs to get its shit together.
Now, Blake wasn’t destitute. He and his wife had a good life. He had friends and patrons and customers. He made most of his money engraving and illustrating other people’s work. E.g., Edward Young’s Night-Thoughts — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-Thoughts. Blake didn’t make much money from it, but today the poem is mostly remembered because of his engravings.
Once we invented capital, we used to do this with patronage — the artist had to please their patron. More civilized cultures IMO do this with public support for the arts. Almost any major city has a library supported by tax dollars, public sculpture and artwork likewise. Amongst richer societies, I believe the USA does this less well than many. It’s difficult for it not to turn political, or for groups not to get up-in-arms because the public art doesn’t pay sufficient homage to their diety of choice.
But yes, as I’ve said before, we’re more than rich enough as a society to pay any artist to do whatever crazy thing they fucking want to, and we’d all be better for it.
The plaster expands slightly as it sets, so it takes a good print.
The process is not quite as straightforward as the traditional methods, but is much less poisonous, produces no nasty waste products (some clhorine gas, but not much), and doesn't require access to a press.
You can also use it for etching aluminium, which is kind of interesting too. Don't try stainless steel, it doesn't seem to work and you end up with chromium oxides everywhere.
In my opinion, he makes a bit of a meal out of it: you don't need to take that much care over the frame, but the technique works well. Sometimes if you have a lot of open bite it's tricky to take off the plate without breaking off some of the surface.
People who look at that and think "ooh I want to try that on a small scale" might be interested in the Open Press Project:
Which offers up plans for (and sells finished prints of) a tiny, cute 3D printed roller press.
Why does the man print multiple copies of the same plate, but each with successively lighter ink, or less ink?
There's a comment about the texture of the ink layer produced by the dauber or pouncer, but they don't show us that, or indeed ever let us get a close look at a page. Some magnified images with raking light would have been nice.
Why is the plate so small, or was that the size of the book (possibly "tricesimo-secondo", 3.5 x 5.5 inches)?
The impressed pages have a distinct rectangle pressed into them. How would such pages be bound into a book, i.e. glued on to larger sheets? sewn or what?
Was the plate being used an original by Blake, or a reproduction?
Was this an on-going project to reproduce an entire book (Songs of Innocence, it appeared) and if so, how long would that take? Or was it a one-off demonstration for the film?
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/pdp/pdp82/p_127...
A skill that Blake took a lifetime to learn is now for sale on Amazon with free shipping. But instead of using it to create original work like Blake did, I use it to steal his art and put it on my wall. That's both sad and glorious.