Songs of Innocence: The Little Black Boy (second plate)
Original title: Songs of Innocence: The Little Black Boy (second plate)
kurzbeschreibung
This sheet comes from William Blake's illuminated print series Songs of Innocence of 1789 and was printed from a second plate around 1825. It shows an old man leading a small boy by the hand, with trees and a sky that shifts through gradations of color. The image was printed in relief with orange-brown ink, then colored by hand in watercolor and shell gold.
Description
An old man seated on the ground holds the hand of a small boy; trees and a sky passing from red through orange into blue form the backdrop. A border with a wavy pattern frames the picture, and a text panel with the poem sits above it. Warm tones of orange, brown and red set the color key, joined by gold accents and hand-applied washes. The raised lines left by etching give the print a relief-like surface texture.
Context
The Songs of Innocence first appeared in 1789 and belong among Blake's self-printed and self-colored illuminated books. This impression was made around 1825, some 36 years after the first edition, and so belongs to a later run. For his prints Blake used the relief etching method he developed himself, in which the non-printing areas are etched away. The second plate of The Little Black Boy departs from the first in its pictorial design, which suggests Blake reworked it.
Impact
The warm coloring and delicate hand-coloring lend the sheet a quiet, almost devotional mood. Text and image enter into a close relationship and together carry the poem's meaning. Scattered touches of gold set gentle points of light and give the sheet a precious quality.
Technique
The printing was done in relief etching: the raised lines transferred orange-brown ink to the paper. Hand-coloring with watercolor and shell gold followed, with the paint occasionally running past the printed lines. At 15.7 x 14.1 cm the sheet matches the small format usual for the pages of the Songs.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)