The Wood Engravings of William Blake for Thornton's Virgil

the wood engravings of

william blake for thornton’s virgil

1821

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‌ the miraculous, tiny woodcuts for Thornton's Virgil.

Martin Butlin Tate Gallery Catalogue, 1978

the wood engravings of

william blake

Seventeen subjects commissioned by Dr Robert Thornton for his Virgil of 1821 newly printed in 1977 from the original blocks now in the British Museum

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William Blake by Thomas Phillips.

william blake

Prophet, poet, painter and printmaker, William Blake (17571827) is regarded as a pivotal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age; one of the greatest Englishmen that has ever lived.

Considered by many as the most seminal of Blake’s works is the series of 17 woodcuts illustrating the Pastorals of Virgil.

Commissioned in 1819 by Robert Thornton, these were to be Blake’s only woodcuts and the impact of these tiny, exquisite images was to reverberate throughout the subsequent history of art. In the words of Samuel Palmer: I sat down with Mr. Blake’s Virgil woodcut engravings before me, thinking to give their merits my feeble testimony. I happened to think of their sentiment. They are visions of little dells, and nooks, and corners of Paradise; models of the exquisite pitch of intense poetry. I thought of their light and shade, and looking upon them I found no word to describe it. Intense depth, solemnity, and vivid brilliancy only coldly and partially describe them. There is in all such a mystic and dreamy glimmer as penetrates and kindles the inmost soul, and gives complete and unreserved delight, unlike the gaudy daylight of this world. The figures of Mr. Blake have that intense, soul-evidencing attitude and action, and that elastic, nervous spring which belongs to uncaged immortal spirits.

The woodcuts offered here were printed from Blake’s original blocks, which are held in the collection of the British Museum.

In 1977 Iain Bain and David Chambers took their printing press to the museum where they printed, under supervision, an edition of 150 sets only.

The prints are shown actual size.

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1.

£850 Is it not ColInET I lonesome see, leaning with folded arms against the tree? –

Specification: The woodcuts offered here were printed on the best paper available, Japanese Hosho, from Blake’s original blocks, which are held in the collection of the British Museum. Printed in an edition of 150 sets only, of which 135 were for sale. They will be framed by hand using archival materials, conservation-grade, acid free mounts and museum quality non-reflective glass.

To order phone 01572 821424 Visit goldmarkart.com Prices include frame and uk delivery

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2.

£500 Each creature, ThEnoT, to his task is born; as they to mirth and music, I to mourn. –

3.

£500 Yet though with years my body downward tend, as trees beneath their fruit in autumn bend,

Buy online >> [5]

4.

£500 Thine ewes will wander; and the heedless lambs, in loud complaints, require their absent dams. –

5.

£500 My piteous plight in yonder naked tree, which bears the thunder-scar too plain, I see:

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6.

£500 or blasting winds o’er blossom’d hedge-rows pass, to kill the promis’d fruits, and scorch the grass;

7.

£500 nor fox, nor wolf, nor rot among our sheep: from these good shepherd’s care his flock may keep against ill luck, Buy online >> [7]

8.

£500 Ah silly I! more silly than my sheep, which on thy flow’ry banks I wont to keep. –

9.

£500 A fond desire strange lands and swains to know. – Ah me! that ever I should covet wo. –

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10. £500 A rolling stone is ever bare of moss; and, to their cost, green years old proverbs cross. –

11. £500 Small need there was, in random search of gain, to drive my pining flock athwart the plain to distant Cam. – Buy online >> [9]

12. ÂŁ500 In vain, o ColInET, thy pipe, so shrill, charms every vale, and gladdens every hill:

13. ÂŁ500 for him our yearly wakes and feasts we hold, and choose the fairest firstlings from the fold;

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14. £500 This night thy care with me forget, and fold thy flock with mine, to ward th’injurious cold. –

15. £500 new milk, and clouted cream, mild cheese and curd, with some remaining fruit of last year’s hoard shall be our ev’ning fare; Buy online >> [11]

16. £500 and now behold the sun’s departing ray, o’er yonder hill, the sign of ebbing day:

17. £500 with songs, the jovial hinds return from plow; and unyok’d heifers, loitering homeward, low.

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To order phone 01572 821424 Visit goldmarkart.com Prices include frame and uk delivery The prints are shown actual size

Buy online >>

The reputation of William Blake (1757-1827) as an artist and writer of astonishing power and originality stands today perhaps higher than ever.

He continues to inspire painters and poets, musicians and mystics, men, women, and children.

And despite his famously radical politics and vehement rejection of much of the social establishment about him, he has been aectionately adopted by a wide British public as a kind of patron saint.

Tate Gallery Catalogue, 2001 Stephen Deuchar, Director, Tate Britain

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