The Engravings of William Blake (1757-1827)

Illustrations for 'The Grave', 1808: The Re-union of the Body and Soul

Fine Art Reproduction
Full Size Reproduction: 9.25 x 6.7 inches: Sheet: 11 x 8.25 inches

This reproduction is a new, individually printed and proofed, superior quality, giclee* process, fine art print.
It is printed on 100% cotton rag acid-free, heavyweight fine art paper with a luxurious textured watercolor paper finish and archival pigment inks to ensure permanence.
Created for collectors, it IS NOT A POSTER or mass produced print on low quality, inexpensive paper.

William Blake was an artist and writer of astonishing power and originality who has inspired generations of poets, painters and artists of all ages. Seen by the British public of his day as a combination of individualism and creativity his poem “Tyger” and verses to the hymn “Jerusalem” are still revered today. His prints, numerous illuminated books, drawings and paintings continue to appeal to a wide audience.
William Blake’s Engravings
Although Blake has become most famous for his watercolor illustrations and relief etchings, his commercial work largely consisted of intaglio engraving, the standard process of engraving in the eighteenth century in which the artist would incise an image into the copper plate which and then make multiple prints of a single image for publication and resale. Engravings were the ‘photographic illustrations’ of their day and the activity for which Blake was initially trained.

Illustrations to Robert Blair’s ‘The Grave’, 1808
In 1808 Robert Cromek, an engraver turned publishing entrepreneur, commissioned Blake to produce a set of engravings (or Invention’s as Blake liked to call them) for the Robert Blair’s 1743 poem, The Grave.
The poem enjoyed enormous popularity even sixty years after its writing owing to the prevailing fashion for Gothic melancholy, or 'graveyard poetry' as Blake called it. The poem chronicles the regular progression of Man after death, from his first descent into the Vale of Death, to his last admission into eternal life in Heaven.

Blake went about completing the designs (drawings) for all the poem’s illustrated plates only to have the publisher, Cromek, hand the designs over to Luigi Schiavonetti (1765-1810) whose smooth engraving style he judged more to the public taste than Blake’s. As a result, of the estimated £1800 the book brought in, £600 went to Schiavonetti and just £20 to Blake. To be fair to Schiavonetti though, he did an excellent job. Blake however, got his revenge in the sense that the pictures are still famous while Cromek and Schiavonetti would now be totally forgotten without Blake’s designs.

The Re-union of the Body and Soul
The Body springs from the grave, the Soul descends from an opening cloud; they rush together with inconceivable energy; they meet, never again to part!
Original Medium: Engraving, black ink on paper. Reproduction: Fine Art Paper with watercolor paper textured finish, pigment inks
Image Size: 9.5 x 7 inches – actual size, printed on larger paper to allow ample borders for matting and framing.

NOTE: The Da Vinci Art Prints watermark on this image is for computer viewing only and of course NOT on the actual print.

PayPal only please. Prints ship in a heavy protective cardboard tube.

**the giclee process produces a high quality, fine art reproduction from a high-resolution digital file of an image. The file is then printed with a high-resolution photo generation printer on a fine art paper. Most artists and working photographers today use the giclee process to produce reproductions of their original artwork and photographs.

As with any original art or fine art reproduction, it is recommended that prints are framed and displayed under glass to prevent color fade or shift over the years.