Beth, you've zoomed in on one of the thorniest, but also most intriguing aspects of the Blake Archive-- the image search, or more precisely the evolution of the control vocabulary and descriptive scheme that's used to facilitate it. The "book of terms," as the list of descriptors is called, is absolutely a work in progress (still), and very much contingent on both the expertise of the scholars involved and the idiosyncracies of Blake's own work. The emphasis on posture and gesture, for example (some might say inordinate emphasis: "left arm extend 120 degrees"?!) is a direct outgrowth of the fact that posture and gesture signify in meaningful ways in Blake's own iconic palette. More generally, we've tried to always locate terms at the most general level of specificity: not "lamb" but "sheep", for example.

This particular order of things is certainly subjective: how could it be otherwise? But we're also in good company here: image description of this sort has a long history and tradition, dating back to Pliny. In poetry we call it ekphrasis.

Hallo friends! Really nice place here. I found a lot of interesting stuff all around. Just what I was looking for. Great joy!