1In 1788 William Blake invented what was technically a revolutionary method of printing both word and image together that he called “Illuminated Printing”. Blake’s invention made it possible to print both the text of his poems and the images that he created to illustrate them from the same copper plate, by etching both in relief (in contrast to conventional etching or engraving in intaglio). This allowed Blake to print his books in “Illuminated Printing” on his own copper-plate rolling-press. Significantly, this meant that he became solely responsible not only for the creation, but also for the reproduction of his works, and largely free from commercial constraint and entirely free from censorship.

2In order to more fully appreciate the significance of Blake’s innovation, it will be helpful to set Blake’s invention in the context of conventional eighteenth-century illustrated book production, which required two fundamentally different kinds of printing press, a screw- or letter-press as well as a rolling-press, together with numbers of highly skilled specialist pressmen. The metaphorical significance of Blake’s method of “Illuminated Printing” will then be explored.

Taking charge of the printing process

3Blake was trained as a copy-engraver (1772-79), serving seven years as an apprentice to James Basire (1730-1804) before qualifying to set up in business on his own. From his earliest years Blake also aspired to be both a poet and a painter. Using his technical training as a professional engraver, Blake found a way in which to reproduce his writings and designs and print them together: without the need to involve a publisher to organise and oversee production; a letterpress printer to print his text; or, a rolling-press workshop to print his engraved designs. As a result of his innovation, Blake became entirely responsible, not only for the creation of his works, but also for their reproduction and publication.

J. T. Smith’s account

5As recorded by J. T. Smith, Robert’s school-friend and the author of one of the first and most reliable accounts of Blake, Nollekens and his Times (1828), Robert’s spiritual presence became a catalyst for Blake discovering the means by which he could reproduce his own works:

Blake, after deeply perplexing himself as to the mode of accomplishing the publication of his illustrated songs, without their being subject to the expense of letter-press, his brother Robert stood before him in one of his visionary imaginations, and so decidedly directed him in the way in which he ought to proceed, that he immediately followed his advice, by writing his poetry, and drawing his marginal subjects of embellishments in outline upon the copper-plate with an impervious liquid, and then eating the plain parts away with aquafortis considerably below them, so that the outlines were left as a stereotype. The plates in this state were then painted in any tint that he wished, to enable him or Mrs. Blake to colour the marginal figures up by hand in imitation of drawings. (Smith vol. 2 461; repr. Blake Records 609)

6This must have taken place within a year of Robert’s death. The colophon of the last work that Blake produced using his method, The Ghost of Abel, reads, “1822 W Blakes Original Stereotype was 1788” (Blake 272). This referred to the production in 1788 of two small experimental tractates, All Religions are One and (in two series) There is No Natural Religion. However, by 1789 Blake was able to publish the first examples using his new method, the Songs of Innocence and The Book of Thel (Figure 1).

Linnell’s annotations

7John Linnell, who met Blake in 1818 and became a close friend and supporter, later annotated a copy of Smith’s account. As Linnell was himself a skilled printmaker the details he supplies have authority:

The liquid mentioned by Mr Smith with which he says Blake used to Draw his subjects in outline on his copper plates was nothing more I believe [sic] than the usual stopping as it is called used by engravers made chiefly of pitch and diluted with Terps.

8He then added an important detail:

The most extraordinary facility seems to have been attained by Blake in writing backwards & that with a brush dipped in a glutinous liquid [,] for the writing is in many instances highly ornamental & varied in character as may be seen in his Songs of Innocence and the larger work of one hundred plates called Jerusalem. (Blake Records 609)

9Linnell confirms – what for many years has been misunderstood – that Blake was highly skilled in the use of mirror writing and was able to employ it in the creation of his illuminated books. Linnell also tells us that it was stop-out varnish that Blake used to write and draw on his plates. Such varnish is traditionally used during the etching process to cover parts of the plate so that other areas left exposed can be etched more deeply. Blake would have learned to mix and use stop-out varnish as an apprentice. The mixture would have to flow easily from his quill pen or fine brush and not run. It then had to harden sufficiently to resist being corroded or “bitten” by the mordant, almost certainly nitric acid, then commonly in use.

10Both properties were crucial. When the stop-out varnish was fluid, it provided a medium that was free and immediately responsive to the artist’s hand. In solid form it made possible by etching the transformation of a freely drawn artefact, composed of poetry and design, into one capable of reproduction. By creating a formula possessing these contrary aspects, and putting it to use in just this manner, Blake unified the rela­tionship between the poet and the painter with that of the printmaker.

Historical context

12When the text had been edited and was ready to be printed, and the designs had been etched or engraved, the manuscript was first sent to a letter-press printer’s workshop to be printed from raised lead type, with instructions to leave blank spaces for the engraved plates to be printed later (Figures 2 and 3). Once the text had been printed, the sheets were then taken to a copper-plate printer’s workshop and the spaces that had been left blank printed with the illustrations etched or engraved on copper plates (Figure 4). Each operation entailed highly skilled specialists who were responsible for a distinct stage in the production process leading to publication of the book.

13In other words, the production of an illustrated book entailed the use of two fundamentally different kinds of printing press: the letter-press was used to print the text from raised lead type, that is to say, from above the surface (Figure 5); while the etched or engraved copper plates, used to print the illustrations, were printed from below the surface, as the design had been incised into the face of the copper plate by the graver, or, if etched, by the mordant (Figure 6).

14The publication of Joseph Ritson’s A Select Collection of English Songs by the bookseller Joseph Johnson in 1783 is an example of conventional illustrated book production that Blake was involved in as copy engraver (Figure 7). The text has been set and printed in letterpress. The artist, Thomas Stothard, was commissioned by Johnson to draw the design in illustration and Blake was commissioned to engrave Stothard’s design (Figure 8). After the sheets were printed in the letterpress printer’s workshop, they were taken to the copper-plate printer. In the space left blank for the illustration, the engraved plate was then printed in a rolling press.

Blake’s innovation

15What exactly was Blake’s innovation? Conventional etching involves covering a warmed copper plate with a fine layer of wax known as a “ground” (Figure 9). When the ground has hardened the design is then cut into it using an etching needle. The areas of the copper plate that have been exposed are then subjected to the corrosive effects of the mordant, “bit­ing” the plate to create recesses. In preparation for printing, these recesses are charged with ink and the surface wiped clean. Blake’s innovation turned conventional practice on its head. Very simply, Blake used stop-out varnish like ink, and the copper plate like a sheet of paper, writing his text and drawing his design together on to the same copper plate (Figure 10).

16This is not to suggest that Blake composed his poems and their accompanying designs on the plate. The creative process began with the development of the text in manuscript until he was satisfied with the copy that had been achieved (Figure 11). The design was conceived through sketches, adapted in different ways for different works (Figure 12). The copper plate was where text and design were finally brought together to create a unified whole (Figure 13). It formed a work of composite art of word and image, written and drawn in reverse in stop-out varnish in preparation for etching (Figures 14 and 15).

17When the plate was ready to be etched, particular care was needed in order to protect the letters of the text, the fine detail of the design and the delicate, interlinear figures. This was accomplished by etching the plate in at least two stages to prevent “under-biting”, when the varnish used to write the text and draw the design begins to lift away. To prevent this happening Blake would stop the process, gently wash and dry the plate, and then apply more varnish to these vulnerable details. In so doing he created “islands” of protective varnish around the letters before etching the plate again.

America fragment

18We know how Blake proceeded from a single fragment that has survived from one of his relief-etched copper plates. This cancelled plate from America a Prophecy is now in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. (Figure 16). The fragment not only reveals that more than one stage of etching was involved, and how stop-out varnish was applied between stages to protect vulnerable areas, but also, significantly, that the total depth of bite was extremely shallow, no more than 0.12 mm. The evidence provided by this single fragment will be all-important to understand what was involved in inking the relief surfaces of plates etched to such shallow depths.

Jackson & Chatto’s A Treatise on Wood Engraving

20Inking only the extremely shallow relief surfaces of the copper plate with a leather dauber or ball required not only skill, but also patience and time. In A Treatise on Wood Engraving (1839), John Jackson and W. A. Chatto describe what was involved, in what is the only first-hand account of how Blake prepared his relief-etched copper plates for printing:

As it is difficult, according to Blake’s process, to corrode the large white parts to a depth sufficient to prevent their being touched by the dauber or ball in the process of inking, and thus preventing a soiled appearance in the impression, he was accustomed to wipe the ink out where it had touched in the hollows. As this occupied more time than the mere inking of the plate, his progress in printing was necessarily slow. (Jackson and Chatto 716-17)

21Because the etched areas of the plate that surround the letters and design are so shallow, as Jackson and Chatto describe, it was almost impossible to avoid touching the shallows during the process of inking with the dauber (Figures 18, 19 and 20). When original monochrome impressions of the illuminated books are examined, one can see evidence of where Blake has then painstakingly wiped away driblets and smudges of ink following inking with the dauber or ink ball (see Phillips 2004).

22In the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, there is a monochrome impression of “The Tyger” that shows clearly what could take place during the inking process that Jackson and Chatto describe (Figure 21). As we look more closely, the driblets and smudges of ink can be seen more and more clearly (Figures 22 and 23). In this case Blake evidently felt that the impression was passable (perhaps because it could be heavily hand-coloured later), though apparently it was never included in a copy of the Songs of Experience (Figure 24). When studied closely, monochrome impressions almost invariably show signs of Blake painstakingly wiping these driblets and smudges away.

23Neglect of Jackson’s account has led scholars to presume that Blake’s inking and plate-wiping process was carried out quickly and with ease. In fact, it can take up to 30 minutes or more to prepare one of the plates of the Songs, and more than an hour to ink and wipe one of the larger plates from America a Prophecy or Europe a Prophecy. This has far-reaching consequences for the numbers of copies produced.

25Blake’s innovation was to etch in relief both his text and his design together on the same plate. This made it possible to print both from the same inked surface, in the same press, at the same time – a development that liberated him from the constraints and expense of conventional illustrated book production, as well as the imposition of censorship. From inception to publication, the work never left his hands. Apart from the need to purchase the copper used in making his plates, the paper used to print, and the oil and pigments used to mix his inks and watercolours, Blake controlled and was responsible for every step in the creative and reproductive process.

Metaphorical significance

27Blake’s method of printing held a significance for him of yet another kind. On plate 14 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he describes his process in these terms (Figure 26):

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

• 9 Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 39.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. (Blake 656)9

28Blake’s method was symbolic of his philosophy of mind and unwavering belief in the existence of innate ideas. This belief was fundamentally opposed to empiricism, the philosophy that dominated the eighteenth century, in particular as established by John Locke in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

Let us then suppose the Mind to be, as we say, white Paper, void of all Characters, without Ideas; How comes it to be furnished? […] to this I answer, in one word, From Experience. In that, all our Knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives it self. (Locke II.i.2)

29In his annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, Blake noted that he had read Locke’s Essay “when very Young”. His opposition to empiricism and to all who believed in its principles was unequivocal:

Reynolds Thinks that Man learns all that he Knows I say on the Contrary That Man Brings All that he has or Can have Into the World with him. Man is Born Like a Garden ready Planted & Sown. (Blake 656)

30For a man with Blake’s training, the analogy between Locke’s metaphor for the human mind as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, and a copper plate prepared for conventional intaglio etching or engraving would have been apparent (Figure 27). Its opposite, etching in relief by biting away the surfaces of the copper to reveal poetry and design from within, would similarly have been appreciated as a corresponding metaphor for the existence of innate ideas – for the divine within man, awakened and raised to life, as the head-piece to plate 14 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell depicts. Awakening the divine within man, regaining the “paradise within” promised at the conclusion of Milton’s Paradise Lost, is the abiding principle of Blake’s poetry and art.