William Blake exhibition 30th January 2020I went to visit the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain on the 30th January, my main reason for visiting was to look at his typography / calligraphy work and the small illustrations that went with these.

Obviously I also looked at his other more famous works as well.

Here is the introduction to the exhibition from the booklet:-

I found most of Blake’s early sketches really interesting, they had some of his sketchbook’s there and they were great to look at, and to see how he kept his sketchbook and what sort of sketches he did.

Blake W (1779-80) Academy study [Graphite on paper] The British Museum London

Here in one of his sketchbooks you can see just rough drawings of people and figures and sculptures, its great seeing that even famous people do draw very rough sketches in their sketchbooks, nothing is great first of all!

Blake W (1805) Catherine Blake [Graphite on paper] Tate

This lovely little watercolour was really gorgeous; I loved the detail on the girls dress, the pretty colours and the print design.

Blake W (1785-90) Age teaching youth [Ink and watercolour on paper] Tate

You can really see the detail here in this close up picture I took of the above painting.

Again here you can see a really basic study and sketches, marking out the paper for the picture of where the elements will go in the final painting. This looks really basic but it’s good to see the different stages that these famous artists took.

Blake W (1780) Moses receiving the Law [Ink, grey and black washes and graphite on paper] Yale centre of British Art

Most of Blake’s work was inspired by poetry and religion, as well as visions of the world and people in a different way. He used his craft as an engraver to make his work come to life by copying an image and cutting fine lines into the metal plate so that it could be printed and then copied several times over.

Blake W (1794 printed c1818) the first book of Urizen (copy G) [Relief etching printed in yellow brown with watercolour and gold] Library of congress Lessing J Rosewald collection 1807

Above we can see how the printed piece looks after; also here Blake has enhanced the printed copy with watercolours and gold.

Below are some examples of Blake’s calligraphy and illustrations on poetry and in books, you can see how they both work hand in hand to visualize the written communication.

One of Blake’s famous paintings and one of my favourites from his collection, it’s a watercolour and graphite on paper which I think works really well and gives a luminescence to the picture, which also adds to the theme of the painting.

Blake W (1786) Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing [Watercolour and graphite on paper] Tate

Another one of Blake’s most famous pictures is this one called ‘Newton’ Again he has used a print for the majority of the outline of the picture, then colours it in with ink’s and watercolours to give it the amazing finish. From looking up close you wouldn’t realize that it was a print, it is that good, the watercolour and ink painting is very delicate also which gives it a intricate finish.

Blake W (1805) Newton [Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper] Tate

This next picture I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! The detail in the painting was incredible, there was so much to see and so much detail you couldn’t take it all in.

It was created using just pencil, pen and ink on paper then coloured in slightly with watercolours, this one is not a print but you would think it was because of all the details involved. I took a close up picture of one corner, so you could see what was in just that one little section.

Blake W (1808) A vision of the last judgement [Watercolour, pen and ink and pencil on paper] National trust collections.

Look at all the faces and heads, expressions and feeling within just this one bit! I could imagine this would have taken hours, days, weeks or even years to create.

So What I took away the most from the exhibition was how to use both visual and written communication to work together to get the feeling across of the piece you are communicating.

How decorative typography can add to the effect of the piece, and make it more vibrant or interesting and work with the illustrations.

I also like the way that Blake used watercolours in washes and mixing it with ink to give different effects, also how basic your initial sketches can be and not to be worried about getting it right first time.

Also its about practise and working every day on your craft to get to a point of success and exceptional work.