William Blake, the major poet, original thinker, printmaker, and prominent figure of the Romantic age. Blake received visions from a young age as well as having the bible engraved onto him, these became the main inspirations of his works. Other inspirations for his works were stories and scenes from other literary stories.
“The Ghost of a Flea” (c1819-20)
One of Blake’s more well known works was “The Ghost of a Flea” (c1819-20), came to Blake during a seance. The mood of this painting is very bleak and nightmarish
“The Ancient of Days” (1795)
An image that Blake loved was and made multiple copies of. “The Ancient of Days” (1795) depicts Blake’s personal myth of an evil god bringing uniformity. A very symbolic and dark piece
“Newton” (1795-c1805)
“Newton” (1795-c1805) is about Blake’s distaste of science as he depicts Newton in an isolated cold space.without much life.
“Satan” (c1789)
In “Satan” (c1789) Blake was experimenting with echoppe needles, a french engraving method. The piece itself is very fine tuned and captures a tortured spirit well.
Note: Apologies for the late upload, during this time I was having troubles with logging into my account.
Old lithographic printing machine
One piece of technology that The lithographic printer was a “great leap forward in printing technology”. Along with being the topic of survey 4, the lithographic printer had a wide variety of uses and functions, along with the advantage of being so far ahead of it’s time that it is still being used today.
Modern lithographic printer
The actual invention of the lithographic printer didn’t come from space, so how was it invented? It was all thanks to Alois Senerfelder, the son of an actor. Growing up, Senerfelder wanted to pursue theatre, however he had little talent for it, and his father wanted him to study law instead. But his love for theatre had not died yet, and he had found a home and success in writing plays. Senerfelder had many of his works published but unfortunately never made too much profit from it. Because of this, Senerfelder decided to find a more cost effective way of reproducing his work. This began with him attempting to produce his own copperplate engravings. A process that required time to master. However, because of this, Senerfelder decided that a better alternative to this would be to practice on Bavarian limestone. In addition to this, Senerfelder invented correction fluid to make sure that his finished engraving didn’t have any unwanted marks.
Old lithographic printer poster/ advertisement
The creation of these two caused an experiment of which seeing how ink and water repel each other, would easily be able to transfer an image from the stone. This chemical reaction would then be known later on as the ‘principle of lithography’. However because of the nature of this chemical principle, Senerfelder preferred to call it ‘Chemical printing’.
First lithographic printer and automated lithographic printer
The final points about lithographic printing is that, after inventing it, Senerfelder devoted the rest of his life to the lithographic progress. Eventually, in 1817, Senerfelder was able to design a press with automatic process of wetting and applying the ink to the plate. This let Senerfelder become a recognized person among his contemporaries. Senerfelder died comfortably with the position of “Bavarian Royal Inspector of Lithography”.
Note: Apologies for the late upload, during this time I was having troubles with logging into my account.
Malleus Maleficarum vol 1.
Survey 3, the week of burning witches. For the ordinary citizens of the 15th century, most of the women lived in fear of being accused of being a witch as well as some men since they weren’t fully exempt of accusation either. Until the year that The “British Witchcraft Act” was passed, which was 1735, the church had spread the fear of witches across most of Europe and therefore caused a mass hysteria and many, many executions.
Malleus Maleficarum page
Most of the accusations happened in parts of what is now, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Switzerland. The number of accusations during the 200 approximate years that the witch hunts went on are estimated to be 40,000 to 100,000 as stated in public records, however the amount of people accused that are unlisted could be up to three times as many. The majority of executions happened around the years of 1580-1650.
Malleus Maleficarum, burning of a witch
Now, how did people know to find witches? What did they do? At around 1450, a certain book was printed and published, this so called book was named the “Malleus Maleficarum”, this book was written or compiled by Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger. Another name it goes by is “The Hammer of Witches”. One of the reasons that it had become so widespread was because of the invention of printers, and so it was able to be mass produced and widely distributed compared to previous iterations of any witch informing piece of literature. The book was split into three sections that entailed believed practices, how they harm and prevention, and convictions.
“Illustration showing a woman executed by hanging, for the practice of witchcraft, 1692. Published in ‘A Pictorial History of the United States’, 1845. (Photo by Interim Archives/Getty Images)”
The thing about section 3 is that it was biased against the ‘witches’ from the beginning. The authors justification for these were to ‘protect’ the innocent from the devil. The section outlines that judges can lie to the accused by promising them ‘immunity’ if they confess, as well as keeping the identity of the accuser secret to the accused.
Note: Apologies for the late upload, during this time I was having troubles with logging into my account.
Self-Portrait (1800)
My man, Caspar is a god at scenic landscapes. He was acknowledged as an important painter of the German romantic movement. His style is very dramatic and occasionally includes people. His works are more spiritualistic and contrasts the material world during an era where everyone had become too disillusioned to a material world.
“maturity”(1808)
As we begin a deep dive of his works we see how his first important painting was “maturity”(1808). It was met with quite some controversy as his use of landscapes instead of people for symbolism was unique and unnatural. Compared to one of his last pieces with a strong death symbol “Owl upon the Grave Marker”(1836-37). This piece was avoided for its strong symbols and not really noticed as well.
“Owl upon the Grave Marker”(1836-37)
The painting that got Caspar into the view of international buyers was “The Monk by the Sea”(1808-10). It was a minimalist masterpiece and caused many people to reevaluate themselves.
“The Monk by the Sea”(1808-10)
One of the last paintings Friedrich made was “The Stages of Life”(1835) before having multiple strokes that left him barely capable of doing art. The painting is very cinematic and shows an allegory for the stages and the journey of life.
The man known as Bartolome Estaban Murillo, was a good hearted man who later died months after a fight with twenty feet of gravity as well as a marble floor. He was an artist of the Baroque movement, and as such his subjects mostly contained religious themes as well as children. His style was mainly focused on naturalistic, mystical, idealized reality that was very intimate.
“Virgin of the Rosary” (c. 1650)
The “Virgin of the Rosary”(c. 1650) was one of his relatively early works and shows his care into making the figures feel soft and inviting. It is also probably his best virgin and child paintings.
“Portrait of Don Justino de Neve” (1665)
A very masterful portrait was that of “Portrait of Don Justino de Neve”(1665), one of Murillo’s close friends and one who was vital in getting major commissions. As well as a painting with lots of Easter eggs and hidden meanings.
“The Young Beggar” (c. 1645)
“The Young Beggar”(c. 1645) was one of the pieces that showed how Murillo was unique in subject and portraying a quality level of realism. He also made these kinds of paintings specifically for foreigners.
“The Two Trinities” (1675-1682)
Some final paintings of Murillo were “The Two Trinities”(1675-1682)and the one that ended him “The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine”(1680-1682), which was completed by his pupil later on. Both of these have a strong religious theme and have a very strong use of light and dark.
“The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine” (1680-1682)
Topic of survey 2, the daily lives of the Tang Dynasty (C. 618-907). While researching the topic, one of the most interesting and useful websites that we found was http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/4sub9/entry-5431.html. This website told us all about the Tang dynasty’s big city and the life that populated them. The main topics that the article goes through are daily lives, holidays, the capital Chang’an, other cities, food, styles and luxuries, technology, inventions, medicine, and printing. Through researching this site and all the topics, I believed it would be informative to summarize and present to you the ways that new technology really affected everyone of the Tang dynasty.
Movable Type Printing Blocks
Therefore the topics that we will be going through for my part are, technology, inventions, and printing. Some new inventions that they had recently put to use would be a 3 ft tall wine serving machine disguised as an artificial mountain. The serving faucets were also in the shape of a dragon and a tilting bow was used to pour the wine into goblets to serve with a silver leaf tray. Another invention of theirs that was foraged from an invention of the previous Han dynasty was the first gas cylinders, these were said to be able to be carried “dozens of kilometers and still produce a flame”.
Tang Dynasty Wine Server
Along with these, during the Tang dynasty they also invented the first mechanical clock but also were the first to lose it somehow. The way it worked was that it divided up the day into temporary hours which were determined by other factors. The astronomical clock had a clockwork escapism mechanism, a waterwheel alongside a clepsydra clock to “power a rotating armillary sphere” to show astronomical observation. The clock became so well known that students trying to pass the imperial exams had to write an essay on it in order to pass.
Tang Dynasty Clock
Now the last thing to bring up would be that the Tang dynasty developed woodblock printing further into the future. However the way that they made printing work was very different than that of the movable printing style that Bi Sheng developed around the same time, as they instead carved the strokes or images out of wood rather than putting characters together in an almost impossible way to categorize. Now the effects of establishing this new style of printing was that most people in China were now able to access tons of new reading materials. Therefore making most of China more literate. They were also able to spread their language to neighboring countries as well, spreading religion and connecting people as well. Since it was cost effective, it also caught the eyes of Europe and spread a small bit there too.
An Image of Woodblock Printing
To conclude, China remained using the woodblock printing style until the printing press became the global phenomenon that it was.
