William Blacke: "Fine Artist" or "Illustrator?"

William Blacke: “Fine Artist” or “Illustrator?”

Is William Blacke a fine artist or an illustrator? Well in my opinion he is a little of both. A fine artist is one whom concerns his or her self primarily with the creation of beautiful objects as a painting, sculpture, or music. And an illustrator is one whom creates a picture or diagram that explains or decorates. Or it could also be described as a drawing or picture that makes something clear.

One example of William Blacke’s work can be found in our text on page 128, figure 8-21. This example is also shown above. This work of art is the, “title page from Songs of Innocence, 1789.” It is a perfect example of both illustrator and fine artist. This work “…shows how Blake integrated letter forms into illustrations.” Although the letter forms were considered illustrations they were also apart of the fine art side because the letters were made to look like fine art. The letter forms were intertwined in “The swirls of foliage that spin from the serifs of the letters become leaves for a tree…” this in my opinion creates a flowing feeling of song.

William Blacke creates beauty threw his interpretations and combination's of song, color, poetry, and letter form creations. This work of art could be considered both fine art and an illustration. This is because it includes aspects of both styles. For example, it incorporates painting and music along with pictures or drawings of decoration that help explain the books content.

Although his classical style of literature, art, and music would have lead me to believe that he would consider him self to be more of a fine artist than an illustrator. In my final opinion I would say that a persons style is his or her own, because even if he considers him self more of a fine artist others may see that deep down he has an illustrators appeal.

Misty J Slavens