Colinet Rests by a Stream at Night Possibly 1821 - 1977

Curator: This is William Blake’s wood engraving, "Colinet Rests by a Stream at Night," housed here at the Tate. Editor: It's incredibly serene. The tiny scale almost feels like looking into a secret, quiet world. Curator: Blake did this for an edition of pastoral poetry, and there's a real sense of rustic labor in it. But it also feels heavily symbolic, almost dreamlike. Editor: Absolutely, Blake loved to intertwine the earthly with the ethereal, didn't he? The dark, brooding landscape, the crescent moon…it's got that Blakean mystical quality, definitely. Curator: And the figures—the shepherd and his flock—are rendered so tenderly. They become part of this larger meditation on nature and divinity. It also highlights the idealization of rural life present in the Romantic period. Editor: Right. It's an interesting tension, romanticizing the pastoral as a rejection of industrialization, all within these miniature dimensions. Gives it a precious, jewel-like quality. I'm still drawn to the quietude it evokes.