William Blake:
The Painter at Work
Edited by Joyce H. Townsend

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2004.
Short listed, 2006 Historians of British Art Book Prize, multi-authored/edited volume category, College Art Association

Cloth | 2004 | $55.00
192 pp. | 8 5/8 x 10 3/4 | 118 color plates. 28 halftones.

Shopping Cart | Reviews

William Blake: The Painter at Work offers an innovative and revealing approach to one of the most individual of all British artists. Although the highly idiosyncratic nature of Blake's techniques has long been recognized, this is the first book to explore the practical methods behind his unique style--providing a fuller understanding of exactly how this secretive artist worked as a painter.

Richly illustrated with Blake's temperas, watercolors, and color prints and drawings, the book includes essays by leading international authorities who illuminate Blake's techniques and materials using up-to-the-minute research methods. Their analysis of numerous individual works reveals, for example, that Blake used essentially the same range of colors in them all, even if some of the more than 100 temperas he painted from 1799 to 1826 have since darkened or faded.

The book consists of four main sections. Introductory chapters are followed by essays on Blake's watercolors, large color prints, and temperas. An epilogue discusses the presentation of the paintings, and appendices provide more detail on the works discussed. The contributors are John Anderson, Peter Bower, Noa Cahaner McManus, John Dean, Robin Hamlyn, Bronwyn Ormsby, Brian Singer, Joyce H. Townsend, and Piers Townshend.

William Blake: The Painter at Work not only casts new light on the incomparable oeuvre that made Blake one of the most perennially popular of visual artists but also points to ways of preserving this work for future generations. There are still unanswered questions, but now there are answers too.

Reviews:

"First-rate color and black-and-white illustrations including scientific details add to this valuable, first rate study and important contribution."--Choice

"William Blake himself said 'You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.' While those with a general interest in Blake may find here a surfeit of detail regarding the painter and poet's technique, for Blake experts, painters, and conservationists this will be just enough."--Library Journal

Endorsement:

"This is a major contribution to Blake scholarship, the first of its kind in many ways. I suspect that it may also set the standard for other such studies of artists. All the essays are firmly grounded in research: materialist, technical, scientific, historical. The information they provide is truly that--information--with accompanying insights, not the sort of speculative interpretations so frequently encountered in literary and iconographic studies of Blake."--Robert Essick, author of William Blake, Printmaker and William Blake and the Language of Adam

Subject Area:

• Art and Architecture

Published in association with the Tate, London

Cloth: For sale only in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Cloth: $55.00 ISBN13: 978-0-691-11910-6

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 4/23/2008

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