The English Masters: Blake

In this installment of The English Masters series, the filmmakers ponder the art of William Blake, a 19th century Englishman whose reputation in literary circles has always eclipsed his work as an engraver and painter. As this documentary points out, however, Blake showed a potent gift for drawing as a child and was apprenticed to an engraver as a teenager, eventually earning a place as a student in the Royal Academy. But Blake was no fan of neo-Classicism and he pursued his own visionary artistic concepts, which placed him firmly in the emerging Romantic style. Blake provides exceptionally cogent commentary from art historians William Vaughan, Catherine Parry Wingfield and William Cummins, while offering viewers a thorough look at Blake's engravings, monoprints, and watercolors. His books of verse, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (which he also illustrated), are uncharacteristically examined from an art perspective rather than a literary one, in addition to his Lambeth prints, Dante illustrations, engravings based on the "Book of Job" from the Old Testament, and his last great illuminated visionary epic, Jerusalem. Recommended. The other titles in the 6-volume series (series price: $99.95) are: Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Van Vleck)