Songs of Innocence (Dover Fine Art History of Art)

About this book

William Blakes innovations in engraving techniques brought about his brilliant synthesis of visual and poetic art and signaled the beginning of his famous "Illuminated Books " of which the Songs of Innocence was the first and most popular. Unfortunately Blakes vision is generally known to the world in amputated form: because of the difficulty and expense of reproducing his original conception most editions of Blakes work offer only the printed text with no trace of the visual counterpart so essential to his "System." This new facsimile edition of the Songs of Innocence reproduces Blakes color plates in a fashion which the artist himself would have approved. The 31 plates printed on facing pages which are the same size of Blakes own first edition offer one of the more brightly colored versions of this significant volume no two copies of which are the same. As a special aid to readers a typographical reprint of the text of poems follows the plates. Such classic "songs" as "The Lamb" and "The Chimney Sweeper" are now accessible to all in the symbiotic union of poem and picture that is crucial to a total understating of Blakes mind and art.