Colinet's Journey, Milestone Marked 'LXII Miles to London', from Thornton's "Pastorals of Virgil"

Colinet's Journey, Milestone Marked 'LXII Miles to London', from Thornton's "Pastorals of Virgil" by William Blake, executed in 1821, is a powerful example of the artist's late style applied to book illustration. This small-scale work is a wood engraving, specifically preserved here in its second state. The image was created to accompany Robert John Thornton's third edition of the Pastorals of Virgil, a project that allowed Blake to fuse classical literary structure with his unique, visionary interpretation of the pastoral tradition.

The composition centers on the theme of solitary travel and physical progression, explicitly referencing the subject of Roads with the clear depiction of a Milestone Marked 'LXII Miles to London'. Blake renders a lone figure, one of the Men referenced in the tags, identified as the shepherd Colinet from the Pastorals. The dense, linear qualities inherent to the wood engraving medium define the atmosphere. Unlike copperplate etching, wood engraving requires the artist to cut away the non-printing areas from the block's end-grain, resulting in the sharply defined white lines against deep black that characterize Blake's most distinctive prints of this period.

Produced just three years before his death, this illustration exemplifies Blake's profound contribution to 19th-century printmaking. Though often misunderstood during his lifetime, these small wood engravings are now considered pinnacles of the English Romantic movement, demonstrating an imaginative power that transcends their diminutive scale. The technical precision and evocative rendering of the traveler ensure its standing as a significant piece of graphic art. This impression is held within the esteemed collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and high-resolution images of the second state are often made available through public domain initiatives, allowing broader access to Blake's masterful graphic art.