DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31843#0039
THE YEAR OF EXPERIMENTS
outlines are printed from the relief-block. The sky, for instance, would
print blank because it was represented on the block by a hollow. Did
Blake colour the hollows of the metal as well as the parts standing in
relief i This has been suggested, but seems to me unlikely, as I think the
hollow parts would print very unevenly, and the hard edges of the rehef
would surely leave traces of the pressure exerted to force the paper into
the hollows.
Two other hypotheses remain. Blake may have printed the design twice
over. In that case he would first print the outline (as in the ordinary
copies of Thel), and then print the colours over it from another plate.
The difficulty would be in securing exactness of register. M. Lucien
Pissarro suggests to me that he could have placed a piece of glass °ver
the first print, and painted the colours on the glass, which would ena e
him to follow the design closely in painting it. He could then, wit a
gentle pressure, have printed the colour from the glass on top of the
outline-print. M. Camille Pissarro, it appears, printed monotypes m this
way.
There is, however, a simpler solution, which would obviate the necessity
of a second plate and accurate register. He might have painted an lm-
pression from the relief-etching in thick colour, and then placed a piece
of millboard on the paper thus charged with pigment. If this were passed
through the press and the millboard then removed, the suction of the oar
on the pigment would leave a reticulated texture such as we find m these
colour-impressions. . .
With a born experimenter like Blake it is idle to dogmatize over e
processes he may have used. William Strang, in his etchings an en
gravings, was also an untiring experimenter, using all kind of devices an
combinations of devices ; and I remember how, more than once, w en
had asked him how a particular effect was produced, he was himseit
unable to remember how it was done.
19
outlines are printed from the relief-block. The sky, for instance, would
print blank because it was represented on the block by a hollow. Did
Blake colour the hollows of the metal as well as the parts standing in
relief i This has been suggested, but seems to me unlikely, as I think the
hollow parts would print very unevenly, and the hard edges of the rehef
would surely leave traces of the pressure exerted to force the paper into
the hollows.
Two other hypotheses remain. Blake may have printed the design twice
over. In that case he would first print the outline (as in the ordinary
copies of Thel), and then print the colours over it from another plate.
The difficulty would be in securing exactness of register. M. Lucien
Pissarro suggests to me that he could have placed a piece of glass °ver
the first print, and painted the colours on the glass, which would ena e
him to follow the design closely in painting it. He could then, wit a
gentle pressure, have printed the colour from the glass on top of the
outline-print. M. Camille Pissarro, it appears, printed monotypes m this
way.
There is, however, a simpler solution, which would obviate the necessity
of a second plate and accurate register. He might have painted an lm-
pression from the relief-etching in thick colour, and then placed a piece
of millboard on the paper thus charged with pigment. If this were passed
through the press and the millboard then removed, the suction of the oar
on the pigment would leave a reticulated texture such as we find m these
colour-impressions. . .
With a born experimenter like Blake it is idle to dogmatize over e
processes he may have used. William Strang, in his etchings an en
gravings, was also an untiring experimenter, using all kind of devices an
combinations of devices ; and I remember how, more than once, w en
had asked him how a particular effect was produced, he was himseit
unable to remember how it was done.
19