Thursday, October 2, 2008

William Blake

Pseudo trick question, was William Blake a fine artist or an illustrator? Answer, he was both. According to Wikipedia, fine art is generally defined as any art form that puts aesthetics before utility. This definition most certainly fits within the description of most of Blake's poetry, paintings, and drawings. William Blake was perhaps under rated in his lifetime, yet still a very accomplished artist. However, a great deal of his work was done for the sake of illustrating textual books and poems such as Dante's Inferno as well as writing and illustrating his own book called "Jerusalem". Furthermore, the general definition of illustration is any art form that puts function ahead of form for the sake of visualizing textual information. It is for this reason that you have to call a spade a spade by classifying William Blake as both a fine artist and an illustrator.  

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