Editing William Blake (section)

=== Engravings ===
[[File:William Blake-Europe Supported By Africa and America 1796.png|thumb|''Europe Supported by Africa and America'' engraving by William Blake]]
Although Blake has become better known for his relief etching, his commercial work largely consisted of [[Intaglio (printmaking)|intaglio engraving]], the standard process of engraving in the 18th century in which the artist incised an image into the copper plate, a complex and laborious process, with plates taking months or years to complete, but as Blake's contemporary, [[John Boydell]], realised, such engraving offered a "missing link with commerce", enabling artists to connect with a mass audience and became an immensely important activity by the end of the 18th century.<ref>Eaves, Morris. ''The Counter Arts Conspiracy: Art and Industry in the Age of Blake''. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992. pp. 68–9.</ref>

''Europe Supported by Africa and America'' is an engraving by Blake held in the collection of the [[University of Arizona Museum of Art]]. The engraving was for a book written by Blake's friend [[John Gabriel Stedman]] called ''The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'' (1796).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gikandi |first1=Simon |title=Slavery and the Culture of Taste |date=2011 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0691160979 |page=48|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tr8d5H-aKMUC&pg=PA48 |access-date=4 August 2019}}.</ref> It depicts three women embracing one another. Black Africa and White Europe hold hands in a gesture of equality, as the barren earth blooms beneath their feet. Europe wears a string of pearls, while her sisters Africa and America are depicted wearing slave bracelets.<ref name="Erdman">{{cite book |last1=Erdman |first1=David V. |title=Blake: Prophet Against Empire |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0486143903 |page=241 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_nBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT241}}</ref> Some scholars have speculated that the bracelets represent the "historical fact" of slavery in Africa and the Americas while the handclasp refer to Stedman's "ardent wish": "we only differ in color, but are certainly all created by the same Hand."<ref name="Erdman" /> Others have said it "expresses the climate of opinion in which the questions of color and slavery were, at that time, being considered, and which Blake's writings reflect."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Raine |first1=Kathleen |title=Blake and Tradition |date=2002 |orig-year=originally published 1969 | page=29 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-29087-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jc35AQAAQBAJ&pg=PP29 |access-date=4 August 2019}}</ref>

Blake employed intaglio engraving in his own work, such as for his [[William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job|''Illustrations of the Book of Job'']], completed just before his death. Most critical work has concentrated on Blake's relief etching as a technique because it is the most innovative aspect of his art, but a 2009 study drew attention to Blake's surviving plates, including those for the [[Book of Job]]: they demonstrate that he made frequent use of a technique known as "[[repoussage]]", a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. Such techniques, typical of engraving work of the time, are very different from the much faster and fluid way of drawing on a plate that Blake employed for his relief etching, and indicates why the engravings took so long to complete.<ref>Sung, Mei-Ying. ''William Blake and the Art of Engraving''. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009.</ref>