Evening star., 1943-05-02
By Leila Mechlin.

Of Blake at the National Gallery
of Art, and one of contemporary
prints by American printmakers az
the Library of Congress, the discus
sion of prints and print collecting
would seem particularly timely.
The Blakes come from the great
Rosenwald collection, so lately given
to the National Gallery, and may
be regarded as a mere foretaste of
| what is to come, although fully i'm
portant in itself. The contemporary
prints-all produced within the last
year-have been assembled by the
Library of Congress as trustee OF
the Pennell Fund, both for the
purpose of acquisition and as a re-
port of progress in this particular
field.
1t was peculiarly fitting that the
Blake collection should have opened
in the National Gallery last Sunday,
Easter, inasmuch as the artist was
profoundly religious and much of
his work was done in illustration
of biblical subjects.
Obviously he was endowed with
genius at his birth-which, Incl
dentally, took place in London in
November 1757-but also he had
great industry. When a small boy
he learned to engrave, for which
purpose extreme accuracy in drafts
manship is obligatory.
He must have been a strange
child, very serious, addicted to
dreams and visions, but gentle and
kind and, despite lack of worldly
possessions, contented and happy.
AS occasion offered he saw and
studied the drawings of the great
artists of the past but he scarcely
Travelled at all, and practically all
his life was spent in London.
Needless to say, he was a roman
ticist and outside a small circle of
younger artists who were drawn to
hlm-and adored him-he had little
influence upon the art of periods
later than his own Perhaps none
other has so persistently had, as
did he, his feet on the earth and his
head in the clouds, at one and the
same time.
Value of Blake's Work.
According to present day stand
arcs, Blake lived in poverty, and
there is a certain irony in the fact
that since his death his works have
not only increased in appreciation
but in monetary value. The COM
plete set Of 81 engravings that he
did to illustrate the Book of Job
was originally published at 3 gum
eas-about $15-and now brings q
kings ransom. For his MARRIAGE
OF Heaven and He'll a collector In
1889 paid at auction $4,000.
But to Blake this would have made
little difference; he loved his work:
he was a poet as we'll as an artist:
unWorldly, In 1882 he made a most
happy marriage, his bride, according
TO SWlnbourne, becoming the most
perfect wife on record Not only
was she congenial and sympathetic
but capable of assisting him in his
work. His death occurred in August.
1927.
Not only are there prints by Blake
on view at the National Gallery. but
water colors and some of his books
and plates. The latter are of
particular interest to printmakers,
lnasmuch as they are in a method
which he almost exclusively en-
ployed. He called it ito wood-cut
on coppers," and that is literally
what he did, the lines for printing
standing up above the surface of
the copper plate rather than being
cut into 1t. He also did wood en-
craving, but rarely, so that when a
set OF books by him-17, illustrating
Thornton's "Pastorals of Virgil
was found couple or more years
ago it was straightway acquired by
the Art Collections Fund of Great
Britain at cost Of $3.50.
Rosen,Ualds Collection,
1t was in 1920 that Lessing j.
Rosenwald began collecting prints,
purchasing, to begin with, English
etchings, which he kept in boxes in