Songs of Innocence: The Divine Image
[1789] printed ca. 1825
Medium
Relief etching printed in orange-brown ink and hand-colored with watercolor and shell gold
Dimensions
sheet: 6 3/16 x 5 9/16 in. (15.7 x 14.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1917
Accession Number
17.10.18
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Blake's *Songs of Innocence: The Divine Image* (1789, printed ca. 1825) is a plate from one of the visionary artist's most celebrated illuminated books. Part of the Romantic-era *Songs of Innocence*, this work intertwines poetry and intricate imagery to explore themes of mercy, pity, peace, love as reflections of the divine. Blake, a poet, printmaker, and mystic, created these small-scale treasures (just 6 3/16 x 5 9/16 in.) as affordable yet profound art objects, challenging the boundaries between literature and visual expression during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Blake's...
About the Artist
William Blake · 1757–1827
William Blake (1757–1827) stands as one of the most visionary and unconventional artists in British history, a poet-painter-printmaker whose mystical imagination and radical vision profoundly shaped the Romantic movement. Born in London's Soho district, Blake experienced visions from childhood—claiming to see angels in trees at age eight—and these spiritual encounters would guide his art throughou...