BLAKE'S JOB 4

Dover Books

Durer

Drawings for the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian

"Regarded as the greatest of the German Renaissance artists, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) created a vast body of work that ranges from altarpieces to copper engravings and portraits. Painter, printer, draughtsman, and art theorist, he remains most famous for his woodcuts.
Dürer's primary patron from 1512 onward was the Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Germans, Maximilian I." from Dover Publications

In The Traveller in the Evening Morton Paley remarks that Blake may have been moved to illustrate the borders of his engravings for Job by observing the Drawings for the Prayer-Book of Emperor Maximilian. These drawing had been executed by Durer whom Blake held in the highest regard. It is likely that Blake had the opportunity to study the facsimile edition of Albert Durer's Designs for the Prayer Book published in 1817 by Rudolph Ackermann. When the Blakes lived on Fountain Court they were just around the corner from Ackermann's print shop and showroom on The Strand.

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Plate 10

It seems that as Blake was working with Linnell to publish illustrations of the book of Job, he found that he could do more than engrave images with the new vitality stimulated by working with Linnell who was familiar with techniques which Blake was not accustomed to using. As he had done with his Illuminated Books, he could coordinate the images with the written word by quoting verses from the book of Job and other books of the Bible. In addition he could engrave images on the borders of the plates in a way that resembled Durer's illustrations to the Book of Common Prayer. As the project unfolded Blake drew together multiple influences as his imagination led him.   

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Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I

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