GRAPHIC TRANSITIONS: THE PICTURE OF ROMANTICISM
Romantic Poets: late 1700s-1800s
Romantic poets were writing in a time where writing was becoming a different type of process. It is often depicted as transitioning toward lyricism with a focus on the individual author as a solitary hero. There was a turn of focus that intertwined nature and emotion.
William Blake's Poetry and Art, Songs of Innocence and Experience is examined in this course because this work is situated during the time of Romanticism, and its combination of picture and text frustrates the process of mass production. It is an example of how changes in the process of bookmaking correlated with changes in the process of idea-making.
In later periods of mass-production within educational systems, the effect and social situation of artworks like Blakes can become utterly invisible because of the expense and complexity of duplication. (Notes, page 160-161)
This sparks the discussion of detail in different forms and genres:
|
Picture (Hand-colored engraving/etching) |
Text |
|
⇢ Establishes visual ⇢Can just be "seem" |
⇢The reader does the work to establish the visual correspondance |
|
⇢The pictorial does not require literacy (broad access) |
⇢Requires literacy (class dimension) |
|
⇢Frustrates the process of mass production ⇢Cannot be duplicated easily ⇢Costly |
⇢Mass circulation ⇢Establishes a mass story |
|
⇢(Feeling) The viewer is an outsider - material specifics highlighted ⇢Could exist outside of the text (social focus) |
⇢(Feeling) The reader could be a part of - mental/concept sympathies ⇢Could exist within (individual focus) |
Blake's work stands as an example where words, pictures, and styles cannot be separated. There is a resistance to specialization and a refusal to see pictures and texts separately.
← Image from notes where the class explored the construction and detail of Blake's artwork and writing in Songs of Innocence and Experience. Notes on student observations of Blake's work, and a discussion outline on how the recognition of language being situated within an image can instigate new meanings.