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William Blake: The Artist
Biography
- GenresArt
Paperback
Published January 1, 1971
15 people want to read
About the author
Ruthven Todd
61 books21 followersRuthven Todd was a poet, author of children's books, and a member of the surrealist school of art. He also wrote detective fiction under the pseudonym R.T. Campbell.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 2, 2024
This is a little picture book with a fair amount of text written by this guy Ruthven Todd, who was an interesting guy friends with Dylan Thomas and Wyndham Lewis (and was his assistant for the famous painting of Ezra Pound napping), and in older age wrote comic books about cats in outer space. Not much of that personality shows through to this book, which advertises itself as examining Blake's techniques but mostly refines itself to the literal materials he used, and spends more time functioning as a business biography of Blake's career as an artist. I frankly don't find this very interesting, but there's some entertainment in seeing how a low class engraver made a living in the early 19th century.
As for Blake's artistry, it is absolutely incredible. This book doesn't feature much from his prophetic books, which I found somewhat disappointing, but seems to have of his epic watercolors and engravings. I only have a couple of surveys of art history under my belt, so I'm not very qualified to discuss these things very profoundly; one thing that struck me is that Blake's paintings are much like his poetry, being at first ken seemingly very simple and silly, but being possessed of incredibly intricate construction and featuring tiny clever details worthy, to my eye, of any of the great masters, and moreover featuring distinct curves and distortions that are at once wildly evocative and totally unique. I do wish this book was in color (I know from professional experience that, for such a small run, it can't have been that much more expensive to have done so) since the Blake art I've seen in the flesh has always had very striking and fascinating colors, despite Blake's conviction that fancy color work was a hack tool for mediocre artists like Rubens and Titian (his words, not mine). In all events this book seems obscure and I don't see a reason to track it down, but getting your hands on something similar would be definitely a worthy investment.
As for Blake's artistry, it is absolutely incredible. This book doesn't feature much from his prophetic books, which I found somewhat disappointing, but seems to have of his epic watercolors and engravings. I only have a couple of surveys of art history under my belt, so I'm not very qualified to discuss these things very profoundly; one thing that struck me is that Blake's paintings are much like his poetry, being at first ken seemingly very simple and silly, but being possessed of incredibly intricate construction and featuring tiny clever details worthy, to my eye, of any of the great masters, and moreover featuring distinct curves and distortions that are at once wildly evocative and totally unique. I do wish this book was in color (I know from professional experience that, for such a small run, it can't have been that much more expensive to have done so) since the Blake art I've seen in the flesh has always had very striking and fascinating colors, despite Blake's conviction that fancy color work was a hack tool for mediocre artists like Rubens and Titian (his words, not mine). In all events this book seems obscure and I don't see a reason to track it down, but getting your hands on something similar would be definitely a worthy investment.
April 23, 2021
3 3/4 stars
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews