"The Songs of Innocence and Experience" is William Blake's most accessible work, bringing together "Songs of Innocence", drawn from "An Island In the Moon", and "Songs of Experience" whose 50 poems come from the "Manuscript Notebook". This text details the evolution of the manuscript and the production process of the book. All the manuscript pages are reproduced here, and the details of Blake's composition are shown, as is his technique for etching text and design onto a single copperplate. Blake's development of a ...
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"The Songs of Innocence and Experience" is William Blake's most accessible work, bringing together "Songs of Innocence", drawn from "An Island In the Moon", and "Songs of Experience" whose 50 poems come from the "Manuscript Notebook". This text details the evolution of the manuscript and the production process of the book. All the manuscript pages are reproduced here, and the details of Blake's composition are shown, as is his technique for etching text and design onto a single copperplate. Blake's development of a selective colour printing process, printing the design in opaque pigments over the original monochrome impression is explained. This technique was used in the production of "The Songs of Experience", and contrasts with the first copies of "The Songs of Innocence", which had hand-coloured transparent watercolours. Blake published "Songs of Innocence and Experience" in 1794. The last copies were elaborate and expensive, but Michael Phillips here looks at the first copies, revealing the original conception of Blake's work.
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