Four Angels - William Blake
Archival giclée
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Description
A delicate 1797 engraving by William Blake, featuring ethereal figures surrounding a stanza from Edward Young's Night Thoughts.
This engraving originates from William Blake's ambitious project to illustrate Edward Young's poem, Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality. Published in 1797, the work demonstrates Blake's unique approach to combining text and image. The central block of letterpress text is surrounded by his ethereal, flowing figures, which occupy the margins of the page.
Blake depicts four angels in a state of celestial movement. Their forms are elongated and graceful, rendered with fine, delicate lines that suggest weightlessness. One figure descends from the upper right, reaching down towards a group of three figures below. The composition is balanced, with the figures arranged to guide the viewer's eye around the central poetic stanza. The angels possess a soft, dreamlike quality, typical of Blake's visionary style.
Unlike traditional illustrations that merely decorate the text, Blake's designs interact with the poem's themes of mortality and spiritual transition. The figures appear to emerge from the paper itself, creating a sense of depth despite the two-dimensional nature of the print. The monochromatic palette focuses attention on the draftsmanship and the interplay between light and shadow. This specific plate captures the tension between the physical reality of the printed word and the metaphysical subject matter of the verse. It is a characteristic example of Blake's graphic work, where the boundaries between literature and visual art dissolve. The print reflects the artist's preoccupation with the human soul and its journey beyond the material world, presented here with a sense of quiet, contemplative movement.
Return policy
Because every print is made to order, we don't offer change-of-mind returns, refunds or exchanges. If your order arrives faulty, damaged or incorrect, we'll replace it free of charge — just contact us within 48 hours of delivery. See our refunds page for full details.
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We ship worldwide, printing at the production hub nearest to your delivery address. Delivery times and costs vary by destination — you'll see the options available to you at checkout.
Manufacturing
Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
Care and materials
Specific Features
Every Solis piece is made to order with archival, gallery-quality materials built to last.
- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
- Framed prints arrive ready to hang
Care & Cleaning
To keep your artwork looking its best:
- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
- Avoid prolonged direct sunlight
- Never use liquid cleaners on the print or canvas surface
- Keep in a dry, room-temperature space
- Handle prints with clean, dry hands
Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Four Angels - William Blake
Artist Biography
William Blake
He married Catherine Boucher in 1782. She was illiterate at the time and signed the marriage register with an X. He taught her to read, write, and engrave, and she became his collaborator for the next forty-five years: mixing paint, operating the printing press, hand-colouring plates, and binding the finished pages into covers.
Their working method was Blake's own invention, revealed to him (he said) in a dream by the spirit of his dead brother Robert. Relief etching reversed the standard printmaking process: instead of cutting lines into copper, Blake wrote and drew on the plate in acid-resistant varnish, then dissolved the surrounding metal with acid, leaving text and image raised. This allowed him to compose poetry and illustration simultaneously on a single plate, print them together, then hand-colour each sheet in watercolour. Every copy was therefore unique. Songs of Innocence and of Experience was produced this way. He sold fewer than thirty copies during his lifetime.
In 1803, he physically threw a soldier named John Schofield out of his garden in Felpham. He was charged with assault and with uttering treasonable expressions against the King. He was acquitted at the Chichester assizes in January 1804.
Newton, painted in 1795, shows the scientist as a young man with the body of a Greek god, bent forward at the bottom of a dark ocean, fixing his gaze on a pair of compasses, measuring and drawing on a scroll that appears to project from his own head. It is a painting about the limits of reason: beautiful, precise, and missing everything beyond the edge of the paper. The Ancient of Days, from the same period, depicts his mythological figure Urizen crouching at the edge of a void, reaching down with a compass to measure the darkness below.
He died on 12 August 1827, working on illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. He was buried at Bunhill Fields. The wider recognition came decades later.
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