William Blake's Visual Sublime: The "Eternal Labours"

This essay examines Blake's visual aesthetics in the light of recent theories of the sublime. The latter, by seeing the sublime as a dynamic process located within creative activity itself, rather than as an experience that transcends the human, shed new light on Blake's practice and theor...

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Published inEuropean romantic review Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 29 - 48
Main Author Ibata, Hélène
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 01.02.2010
Subjects
Humanities and Social Sciences
Literature
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Abstract This essay examines Blake's visual aesthetics in the light of recent theories of the sublime. The latter, by seeing the sublime as a dynamic process located within creative activity itself, rather than as an experience that transcends the human, shed new light on Blake's practice and theory. In particular, they make it possible to view the high degree of medium reflexivity in the illuminated books, as well as the artist's original conception of linearism, as apt illustrations of such a sublime process. This essay shows how these well-known features of Blake's art reveal his heightened awareness of the incommensurability between material representation and the forms of his imagination, and of the necessity to sustain artistic production nevertheless. Such an experience of the terrifying and energetic struggle towards an ever-elusive formal perfection, we argue, is a forceful expression of the sublime dynamics of visual creation.
AbstractList This essay examines Blake's visual aesthetics in the light of recent theories of the sublime. The latter, by seeing the sublime as a dynamic process located within creative activity itself, rather than as an experience that transcends the human, shed new light on Blake's practice and theory. In particular, they make it possible to view the high degree of medium reflexivity in the illuminated books, as well as the artist's original conception of linearism, as apt illustrations of such a sublime process. This essay shows how these well-known features of Blake's art reveal his heightened awareness of the incommensurability between material representation and the forms of his imagination, and of the necessity to sustain artistic production nevertheless. Such an experience of the terrifying and energetic struggle towards an ever-elusive formal perfection, we argue, is a forceful expression of the sublime dynamics of visual creation.
Author Ibata, Hélène
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Snippet This essay examines Blake's visual aesthetics in the light of recent theories of the sublime. The latter, by seeing the sublime as a dynamic process located...
This essay examines Blake’s visual aesthetics in the light of recent theories of the sublime. The latter, by seeing the sublime as a dynamic process located...
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Title William Blake's Visual Sublime: The "Eternal Labours"
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