Geketende man stijgt op met lier - William Blake
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Description
A striking engraving by William Blake from his 1797 series illustrating Edward Young's 'Night Thoughts', depicting a shackled figure ascending with a lyre.
This engraving is a plate from the ambitious 1797 edition of Edward Young's poem, 'The Complaint, and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts'. William Blake was commissioned to provide illustrations for this work, resulting in a series of designs that wrap around the printed text. The image depicts a figure ascending, arms raised towards the heavens, holding a lyre. Despite the shackles attached to the figure's ankle, the composition conveys a sense of spiritual liberation and artistic transcendence. The chains trail down to a bed of thorns, contrasting the physical weight of earthly suffering with the ethereal nature of the poet's inspiration.
Blake utilised a unique method for this project, drawing his designs on the margins of copper plates that contained the letterpress text. The visual style is characteristic of his late eighteenth-century output, featuring elongated, graceful figures and a focus on allegorical narrative. The interplay between the printed verse and the surrounding illustration creates a unified page design, where the text itself becomes part of the visual experience. The monochromatic tone of the engraving allows the viewer to focus on the expressive line work and the dramatic posture of the central figure. This particular plate captures the essence of Blake's approach to Young's text, where the poet's struggle with grief is transformed into a vision of celestial song and release from mortal constraints. The work remains a primary example of the collaborative nature of book production during the period, reflecting the intersection of poetry and visual art.
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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.
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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
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- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
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- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
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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
Geketende man stijgt op met lier - 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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