Abstract

Early in his career as an engraver, William Blake developed a means of lettering on copper printing plates, using a sharply pointed tool to incise letters and numbers backward so that they would appear in the proper orientation when printed. Blake's drypoint retrography was similar to techniques employed by other engravers, but his lettering is sufficiently distinctive to use in identifying his graphic work. He subsequently adapted the letterforms used in this technique to other graphic processes such as relief and intaglio etching of texts, most notably the words in many of his illuminated books.

pdf

Share