William Blake and British Visionary Art
Presented in the frame of the 31st edition of the music festival 'December Nights' (founded by Sviatoslav Richter) this exhibition introduces the art heritage of the outstanding English poet and artist William Blake (1757–1827). The core of the exhibition focuses on etchings, watercolours and tempera by Blake including The Judgment of Paris, Newton, Apostle Paul and a Snake, Brothers bowed down to Joseph, Damned Soul, Judgment Day and Pity, as well as illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare, John Milton and Henry Spencer.
Presented alongside Blake are works by such British masters of the 19th and 20th centuries as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Samuel Palmer, Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, Henry Fuseli, Francis Bacon and Cecil Collins. These artists, in one way or another, appreciated Blake's spiritual experience and embodied it in their art works.
Displayed together, these monuments will allow visitors not only to come closer to Blake’s complex messages but also to appreciate his contribution to the history of art.
The exhibition is organized by Tate Britain and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in partnership with the British Council. Other project participants are the British Museum (London), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), National Portrait Gallery (London), the Fitzwilliam Museum (Сambridge), the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), Petworth House (West Sussex), Britten-Pears Foundation (Aldeburgh).
Partners of the Project include Rudomino All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature and the Magazine 'Foreign Literature'.
Especially for this exhibition the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the British Council prepared an interactive educational programme that will include round tables and meetings with exhibition curators, poets and translators.
Exhibition images
Glossary
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Edition
All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.
Media archive
Past venue
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Russia, Moscow, Pushkin Museum Of Fine Arts
- 29 November 2011 − 19 February 2012
