Catherine Blake - Role in Blake's Art

Role in Blake's Art

Throughout her husband's uneven career, Catherine not only took an active role in the production of William's engravings and illuminated books; she also ran the household finances and offered strong practical support. William's friend J.T. Smith said that Blake "allowed her, to the last moment of his practice, to take off his proof impressions and print his works, which she did most carefully." Catherine's role in colouring at least some of William's illuminated books has been widely acknowledged, although her hand is usually attributed to some of the more clumsily rendered passages. Her work as a printer is held in higher regard.

Read more about this topic:  Catherine Blake

Famous quotes containing the words role in, role, blake and/or art:

    Certainly parents play a crucial role in the lives of individuals who are intellectually gifted or creatively talented. But this role is not one of active instruction, of teaching children skills,... rather, it is support and encouragement parents give children and the intellectual climate that they create in the home which seem to be the critical factors.
    David Elkind (20th century)

    All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.
    Elaine Heffner (20th century)

    And if the Babe is born a Boy
    He’s given to a Woman Old,
    Who nails him down upon a rock
    Catches his shrieks in cups of gold.
    —William Blake (1757–1827)

    Politics has been called the “art of the possible,” and it actually is a realm akin to art insofar as, like art, it occupies a creatively mediating position between spirit and life, the idea and reality.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)