Page 180 - sarah-simblet_sketch-book-for-the-artist

GATHERINGS180
The Human Condition
IN THE SPECTRUM of these vastly different gatherings
of people, we find a spiritual vision, a death charge of
brutality, and the gentle humor of sedate ridicule. We
also see qualities of line, mark, color, texture, and focus,
which by their choice and handling actually become the
force and spirit of each image. Blake has illuminated his
saddened Virgil on the shores of a dark world, where he
watches a turbulent spiral of punishment for the damned.
WILLIAM BLAKE
British visionary, poet, writer artist, and engraver
w h o powerfully illustrated his o w n texts in addition
t o D a n t e ' s Divine Comedy, t h e Bible, a n d o t h e r Comedy. The muscularity of Blake's figures was inspired
works. Blake was driven by a passion for justice
and a profound belief in his visitations f r o m angels.
Misted in translucent layers of paint, pale souls of the lustful
are being spun into yet another realm of hell.
Kathe Kollwitz scratched and engraved her army of
clay-footed troglodytes who rage into war like a mudslide
of revenge. Heath Robinson lived through the same war-torn.
era as Kollwitz, and sweetened the often bleak years with his
impractical inventions. Opposite, a pink-inked cinema wobbles
along with string, inextinguishable in its fortitude and humor.
Brushed line and wash This is an ink-outlined drawing The Circle of the Lustful
made with a fine brush on paper with added washes of
watercolor The image was subsequently redrawn as a (The Whirlwind of Lovers)
line engraving. It illustrates a scene from Dante's Divine
1824 mm)
by Michelangelo's works. 143/4 x 207/8i n ( 3 7 4 x 5 3 0
WILLIAM BLAKE