William Blake's illuminated books are the strangest visual-literary object the English Enlightenment produced. Working alone in London from 1788, Blake invented a relief-etching technique: he wrote poems in acid-resist on copper, etched everything else away, then hand-printed and hand-watercolored each copy with his wife Catherine.

Every page is a single composition in which text, marginal vines, tongues of flame, and naked angelic figures flow as one organism. Indigo, crimson, and gold ochre settle into warm rag paper. The aesthetic declares that the page is a vision — let everything on it breathe together.