Songs of Experience: Holy Thursday

Songs of Experience: Holy Thursday by William Blake is a powerful example of the artist's unique approach to the illuminated book. Created between 1794 and 1825, this piece utilizes the complex technique of relief etching, printed here in a warm orange-brown ink, and is subsequently enriched by careful hand-coloring. The addition of watercolor and touches of shell gold highlights the figures and imbues the print with a luminous quality characteristic of Blake’s innovative composite art form, where image and text are inseparable. This meticulous printing and coloring process ensured that each impression was a unique, hand-finished work.

Blake’s artwork complements his renowned poetry within the Songs of Experience section, offering a searing visual critique of institutionalized charity. The composition depicts a somber procession of charity school children on Holy Thursday, a ceremonial occasion in London that Blake viewed with profound suspicion. While the version of the poem in Songs of Innocence emphasizes joyous praise, the text paired with this visual in Experience questions the systemic poverty and neglect hidden beneath the surface of public piety. Blake often contrasts the innocence of the children with the strict formality of the supervisory women who administer the institutions, reflecting his skepticism toward established social orders of the Georgian period. As a key work of British Romanticism, this relief etching forms part of the impressive holdings of historical prints housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Due to its age and cultural importance, the plate design is widely studied via reproductions, providing access to a work now considered part of the public domain.