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August Issue 2006
University of South
Carolina in Columbia, SC, Offers Exhibit on William Blake
The University
of South Carolina is featuring an exhibition on the works and
life of English Romantic poet and artist William Blake at the
university's Thomas Cooper Library. The exhibit, William Blake,
Visionary and Illustrator, will be on display in the library's
mezzanine gallery, through Sept. 15, 2006.
The exhibit will feature illuminated or hand-copied, embellished
books and drawings by Blake, who lived from 1757 - 1827 and helped
usher in the Romantic Era. The centerpiece of the exhibition is
an original engraving by Blake from his series, Illustrations
of the Book of Job (1825). The first edition with Blake engravings
of William Hayley's poem, The Triumphs of Temper (1803),
also is on display.
The exhibition chronicles Blake's development as an independent
visionary and respected craftsman-engraver and illustrator. In
addition to early works as an apprentice engraver in the 1770s,
there are examples of Blake's political and prophetic poems of
the 1790s and early 1800s, as well as illustrations of deep emotion
that he prepared for Edward Young's poem, Night Thoughts
(1796-97), and Robert Blair's The Grave (1808). His political
sensitivity and humanity are evident in his illustrations for
John Stedman's Narrative (1796) about the suppression of
slave revolts in colonial Surinam (now Guyana).
The illuminated books and drawings are only part of Blake's achievement,
however. He also illustrated works by other writers, including
Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and Gray, as well as
several biblical books, which are featured in the exhibit.
The Blake exhibit draws
on the resources of Thomas Cooper Library's prominent department
of rare books and special collections. The original editions of
many of the books for which Blake prepared engravings were acquired
by the South Carolina College library soon after publication.
The illuminated books of poetry for which he is now best known,
including Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience
(1794), Europe (1794) and Jerusalem (1804), are
shown in the Trianon Press color facsimiles sponsored by the Blake
Trust, which were purchased for Thomas Cooper Library 30 years
ago with support from the John Shaw Billings Endowment.
The engraving from Illustrations of the Book of Job was
acquired with support from the Nancy Pope Rice and Nancy Rice
Davis Library Treasures Endowment, and engravings for The Triumphs
of Temper were purchased with gifts in memory of Mrs. James Willard
Oliver.
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the library
at Contact: 803/777-8154 or at (www.sc.edu/library/).
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