Visual art and written text have been described as historical sisters, linguistic twins and warlike enemies. These attempts to exclusively define the capabilities of each medium are inherently limited, contradictory and inaccurate. A better understanding of their individual capability and cooperative possibility can be achieved by examining the ways in which each functions in relation to the other on the composite page. William Blake's designs provide an excellent arena in which the functional interaction between the arts can be observed. Blake's visual additions to the poetry of Thomas Gray, Robert Blair and Edward Young demonstrate that the visual image is capable of interrupting the stability of exclusive textual meaning. However, this does not undermine the capability of either medium to assert meaningful possibility. Rather, the excess of Blake's visual imagery amidst another's poetic page produces a pluralisation of media and representative potential that avoids the extremes of hierarchical definition and all-inclusive meaninglessness. In contrast, Blake's own composites feature visual art and textual expression that both contribute to an overall evasion of definitive interpretation. However, their unpredictable interrelations and inconsistencies amplify and distort one another on the composite page, sustaining a relationship that is neither exclusively harmonic nor discordant. Thus, the non-synthetic "marriage" of contrary states that provides the subject matter of the Songs and the Marriage is also an accurate model for the overall relationship between visual art and text in Blake's designs. A consideration of historical context reveals the contradictory currents that direct and antagonise Blake's designs and suggests that the perception of the relationship between the "Sister Arts" often depends on such temporal conditions. While acknowledging the limitations imposed by historical circumstance, this study also recognises that late eighteenth-century uncertainties encourage innovative reconceptualisations of composite interaction. In both form and content, Blake's designs contain yet contend with a variety of perspectives, and are invaluable examples of the individual and interactive plenitude that visual art and text are capable of. Overall, Blake's work highlights the unique role that the multi-media space plays in creative and critical efforts to understand the functional capability of each representative medium.

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