Color-printed relief etching in brown ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches (36.8 x 26.7 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.2(1)
Gallery Label:
At the height of the political and social upheaval of the French Revolution, William Blake printed his first full-scale prophetic book, America. A Prophecy. Rather than recounting the horrors that reverberated from France throughout Europe, his illustrated poem reflects on the revolutionary spirit in the American colonies, which had ended in American independence a decade earlier. Blake and many other radicals in the 1790s viewed the American Revolution as the beginning of a global process of liberating nations from superstition and despotism. Although America. A Prophecy is rooted in recent events, the text and accompanying plates do not offer a historical chronology but rather transform history into a mythical narrative of universal relevance. Gallery label for the Critique of Reason: Romantic Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)