America A Prophecy (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake)

America A Prophecy (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake) PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 48

Book Description
This carefully crafted ebook: "America A Prophecy (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. America a Prophecy is a 1793 prophetic book by English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's Continental prophecies. America was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", those of which were either hand coloured or colour printed with the ink being placed on the copperplate before printed. Early sketches for America were also included in his notebook, which Blake used between 1790 and 1793. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

The Continental Prophecies

The Continental Prophecies PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691001456
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
The last volumes in the series of William Blake's Illuminated Books reveal the writer and artist as a prophet driven by a sense of apocalyptic urgency. Blake conceived and executed The Continental Prophecies and The Urizen Books in the early 1790s, capturing the intellectual and spiritual turmoil of the American and French revolutions. Here, for the first time, the general reader will encounter Blake's most intense vision in reproductions that do justice to the originals, accompanied by texts, comprehensive notes and commentaries, and detailed interpretations of the designs. The Continental Prophecies, which comprises "America," "Europe," and "The Song of Los," presents Blake's critical reckoning with the history of his own times. Marked by a particularly close integration of word and image, the books form a mythical plot from historical events and criticize the intricate structure of social oppression that the author attributes to organized state religion. Each of the three books attempts to point a way toward the process of millennial liberation. These volumes complete the six-part series of William Blake's Illuminated Books, including Jerusalem, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (now available in paperback), The Early Illuminated Books, and Milton, A Poem, all published by Princeton University Press.

America, A Prophecy

America, A Prophecy PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 18

Book Description
Accompanied by Blake's signature illustrations, this mythological narrative tells the story of the American Revolution.

The Song of Los (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake)

The Song of Los (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake) PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8074844145
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 7

Book Description
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Song of Los (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Song of Los, written 1795, is one of William Blake's epic poems, known as prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers. The book provides a historical context for The Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los, and also ties those more obscure works to The Continental Prophecies, "Europe" and "America". The second section consists of Los urging revolution. The Song of Los was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", one of his colour printed works with the coloured ink being placed on the copperplate before printed. William Blake was a poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver. During his life the prophetic message of his writings were understood by few and misunderstood by many. However Blake is now widely admired for his soulful originality and lofty imagination. The poetry of William Blake is far reaching in its scope and range of experience. The poems of William Blake can offer a profound symbolism and also a delightful childlike innocence. Whatever the inner meaning of Blake’s poetry we can easily appreciate the beautiful language and lyrical quality of his poetic vision.

THE BOOK OF URIZEN (Illustrated Edition)

THE BOOK OF URIZEN (Illustrated Edition) PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 61

Book Description
"The Book of Urizen" is one of the major prophetic books of the English poet William Blake, illustrated by Blake's own plates. It was originally published as The First Book of Urizen in 1794. Later editions dropped the word "first". The book takes its name from the character Urizen in Blake's mythology, who represents alienated reason as the source of oppression. The book describes Urizen as the "primeaval priest", and describes how he became separated from the other Eternals to create his own alienated and enslaving realm of religious dogma. Los and Enitharmon create a space within Urizen's fallen universe to give birth to their son Orc, the spirit of revolution and freedom. In form, the book is a parody of the Book of Genesis, with Blake's Urizen being more similar to the demiurge of the Gnostics than a benevolent creator. The poems of William Blake reinterpret the spiritual history of the human race from the fall from Eden to the beginning of the French Revolution. Blake believed in the correspondence between the physical world and the spiritual world and used poetic metaphor to express these beliefs. In his poetry, we hear a man who look's for mankind to salvage his redemption from oppression through resurgence of imaginative life. The power of repression is a constant theme in Blake's poems and he articulates his belief in the titanic forces of revolt and the struggle for freedom against the guardians of tradition. William Blake (1757–1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

William Blake: Seen in My Visions: A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures

William Blake: Seen in My Visions: A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: Tate Enterprises Ltd
ISBN: 1849761361
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 127

Book Description
In 1809 the little-known artist William Blake held an exhibition of 16 paintings in a private house in Soho in the west end of London. Works inspired by Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and John Milton's "Paradise Lost" sat alongside biblical scenes and Arthurian legend. The exhibition was not a success; the only review in the press was extremely unfavourable and few of the public came. One of those who did was the poet Charles Lamb, who later described the pictures as 'hard, dry, yet with grace', and the catalogue that accompanied the show as 'mystical and full of vision'. It is this catalogue that Tate Publishing are once again making available. In it, the scale and range of Blake's ambition are made plain, along with his theories on painting, his unsparing critiques of other artists and some extraordinary insights into the working of his mind. The only detailed writing on art that remains to us by Blake, it throws light on all his subsequent artistic enterprises, including the illuminated books for which he is perhaps most famous. Part commentary and part manifesto, his catalogue is as radical as it is in places eccentric (he claims at one point to have been transported in a "vision" back to the classical world). Fully illustrated in colour with reproductions of surviving works originally in the exhibition, the book includes an illuminating essay by leading authority on British art Martin Myrone, Lead Curator of Pre-1800 Art at Tate Britain, making it an essential purchase for all of those wanting to know more.

The Greatest Works of William Blake (With Complete Original Illustrations)

The Greatest Works of William Blake (With Complete Original Illustrations) PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8027223717
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
Taking his inspiration from the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, Blake invented the process of creating Illuminated Books. Between 1788 and early 1795 Blake published a series of fifteen Illuminated Books. He returned to creating Illuminated Books in 1804 when he began work on Milton (finished in 1808 or later) and Jerusalem. Blake committed himself in the minute particulars of producing his Illuminated Books. The process included creating a mental image, drawing, composing the design and poetry of the plate, engraving, printing, painting, compiling and selling. From inception to final production the color copy of Jerusalem was labored over for sixteen years. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

William Blake

William Blake PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500600252
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
In his illuminated books,William Blake combined his handwritten text with his exuberant imagery on pages the like of which had not been seen since the great decorated books of the Middle Ages. To read such books as Jerusalem, America and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in cold letterpress bears no comparison to seeing and reading them as Blake conceived them, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colours. At times tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction and liberation. This edition, produced together with The William Blake Trust, contains all the pages of Blakes twenty or so illuminated books reproduced in true size, an appendix with all Blakes text set in type and an introduction by the noted Blake scholar, David Bindman. They can at last become part of the lives of all lovers of art and poetry.

America a Prophecy

America a Prophecy PDF Author: William Blake
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781522823155
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 26

Book Description
This volume of premium cosmic horror contains a high-quality facsimile edition of William Blake's original handwritten masterpiece, an introduction by Aladdin Collar, a plain-text companion of the poems, and a diagrammatic interpretation of Blake's unique pantheon of gods. Told through dense verses of symbol and esoteric cosmology, America a Prophecy details a Revolutionary War on a metaphysical plane. Heralded by thirteen colonial angels, the Christ-figure called Ore champions love and passion over the primordial Albion, and Albion's demonic aspect, the terrible Urizen. America a Prophecy is one of 12 Illuminated Prophecies by Blake, which together represent the first modern mythological system. This approach to literature (the development of a unique, fictional cosmology) was later adapted by notable authors such as Lord Dunsany, JRR Tolkein, and HP Lovecraft, before being integrated into mainstream popular entertainment.

William Blake

William Blake PDF Author: Martin Myrone
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691198314
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
"William Blake is a universal artist--an inspiration to visual artists, musicians, poets, and performers worldwide as well as everyone who aspires to the ideals of personal, spiritual, and creative liberty. His heroic story has inspired an invigorated generations. His personal struggles during a period of political terror and oppression, his technical innovations, and his political commitment all remain deeply relevant today. This book presents a comprehensive overview of Blake's work as a printmaker, poet, and painter, foregrounding his relationship with the art world of his time and telling the stories behind many of his most iconic images."--