The World Of William Blake Paintings

By Darren Hartley

William Blake paintings rank among the most original visual arts of the Romantic era. William first studied art as boy, at the drawing academy of Henry Pars. He served a five year apprenticeship with the commercial engraver James Basire before entering the Royal Academy School as an engraver at the age of twenty-two.

William's private studying of medieval and Renaissance art resulted to the early biblical William Blake paintings. One of them was Nature Revolves, but Man Advances. Emulating his idols, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Durer, his dream was to product timeless, Gothic art that spoke of Christian spiritualism completed with a stroke of poetic genius.

The 1790s saw William take on his most ambitious work as a visual artist in a series of 12 large color prints. These William Blake paintings of iconic designs were distinguished by their massive size. Many of the print subjects function in pairs and drawn from the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and Newton.

The technique used in William Blake paintings was described as fresco. It is form of monotype, using oil and tempera paints mixed with chalks. The designs are painted on a flat surface, that is, a copperplate or millboard and finished in ink and watercolour. This made each impression, rare and unique.

From 1799 to 1809, William Blake paintings consisted of a series of Bible illustrations that included about 50 tempera paintings and more than 80 watercolors. The focus of these illustrations was Old Testament prefigurations of Christ, the life of Christ and apocalyptic subjects from the Book of Revelation.

William Blake paintings develop art on an inward-looking, imaginative trajectory. William sought his subjects in journeys of the mind. Other than the Bible, he drew on other texts, most notably Dante, in his painting of Beatrice addressing Dante from the Car, and his own fertile mind, as evidenced by his The Ghost of a Flea.

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Botticelli Paintings

By Darren Hartley

Botticelli adopted a certain conservativeness in his approach to painting. As a matter of fact, he employed the same methods over and over again throughout his career. Still, Botticelli paintings underwent revisions in traditional procedures to give in to new innovations. The employment of a paint with more transparency was evidence of this innovation. This paint, known as tempera grassa, was a combination of egg yolk and oil.

The pigments used in innovative Botticelli paintings were the finest of his time. They were applied in thin, opaque layers known as scumbles, while the reds and greens were frequently glazed. They acquired a compact density, producing an exquisite, enamelled effect and creating an extraordinarily luminous subtlety.

Over time, most of Botticelli paintings lost the fullness of their beauty. Abrasive and over-zealous restoration can take the blame. However, this loss can sometimes be a result of the tendency of colors to become more transparent or change their nature after a few years.

The flesh tones in Botticelli paintings constitute the most refined among its many components. The faces of women were pale and porcelain like, the infants and children endowed with more intensely colored, ruddier complexions while the men appeared with darker flesh.

Botticelli paintings showcased the skill of its artist with the media of chalk, pen, bistre and tempera. Botticelli was considered a pioneer in his use of paper tinted with roses, violets, yellows and grays. This established a middle value for figures, modelled up with whites in the light and down with darker colors.

The uniqueness in the Botticelli paintings consisting of the Dante illustrations lie in their being executed only in outline. They were initially scratched into the parchment and overdrawn with slate and ink. Some of the ink tracings were done with utmost care, others were less advanced while little progress was evident in the execution of their coloring.

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