Liggende man en treurend stel - William Blake
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Description
A classic engraving by William Blake, created as an illustration for Edward Young's Night Thoughts in 1797.
This engraving is one of the many illustrations William Blake produced for Edward Young's poem, Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality. Published in 1797, the project involved Blake creating designs that surround the printed text, integrating visual narrative with the philosophical verses of the poem. The composition features a reclining male figure in the foreground, his posture suggesting contemplation or distress, while a grieving couple stands to the right. The figures are rendered with Blake's characteristic linear precision, emphasising the human form through fluid, elongated proportions and expressive gestures.
Blake's approach to this commission was unconventional. He worked directly onto the copper plates, allowing the imagery to flow around the central blocks of text. This method created a dialogue between the written word and the visual interpretation. The figures are draped in classical, flowing garments that evoke a sense of timelessness, typical of Blake's mythological and allegorical works. The monochromatic palette, typical of the original engravings before any potential hand-colouring, focuses the viewer's attention on the draughtsmanship and the emotional weight of the subjects. The interaction between the reclining man and the standing figures creates a sense of spatial tension, as the figures seem to inhabit the same conceptual space as the printed text. This work reflects the period's interest in the sublime and the melancholic, themes that Blake explored throughout his career. The print serves as a record of the collaboration between the poet's text and the artist's imaginative response, capturing the sombre tone of Young's meditations on mortality and the human condition.
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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.
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
Liggende man en treurend stel - 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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