Curious Crow

What is Illustration?

Is it a style?

How is it different to fine art?

Why is it different? (if it is different)

There does seem to be some confusion about the difference between fine art and illustration. Often illustration is reduced to a style, and the actual definition of the word is ignored or lost.

I’m far from an expert, but I have studied illustration (at a basic level), made illustrations for clients and, much more importantly, I love illustration. I have a large collection of illustrated books, comics, graphic novels and zines. Not to mention books about illustration, so whenever I see illustration reduced to a style, or talked about by someone who doesn’t seem to understand the rich variety of image making which comes under the heading of illustration I am saddened and want to jump in and defend this specialised discipline.

Because it is specialised. Not everyone can illustrate. This may simply be due to a misunderstanding as to the purpose of an illustration, but even so. It does seem some people don’t have the necessary foot in the world of words. Because that is where an illustration (usually) begins.

‘Illustration exists  to illuminate and augment

that which begins life

in the form of

words.’

This was on a handout I received when I was attending a course at my local college. It sounds definitive doesn’t it? Nice and solid. In fact it misses out some important areas, whilst simultaneously raising questions about many of the paintings we now consider fine art. It also ignores the grey areas between graphic design and illustration and fine art and illustration.

Maybe we can start by saying an illustration is definitely not defined by style:  illustration comes in an enormous range of styles from painterly to linear:

 

Sarah Wilde

to almost abstract to ornately decorative:

 

Alphonse Mucha

and from hyper-realistic to highly stylised.

Exactly as fine art does in fact.

 

Having done that I think  we can go on to say  it can be defined by its purpose and its content:

 

If it seeks to illuminate something, to convey information or add dimensions to a story then it’s (probably) an illustration.

 

Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice in Wonderland are famous – their darkness really adds to our experience of the story as we read it.

 

Sir John Tenniel, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Packaging design featuring images of the product in a favourable light also comes within our definition of illustration: The image here – you can just about see it – is suggesting these satsumas are juicy. Did you need that image? No, we always hope our satsumas will be juicy. But an image has a greater effect than just the word, even if you think you aren’t paying attention to it. It tells you these satsumas are juicy – unlike those others over here. And it’s an excellent example of the area where graphic design and illustration join hands.

 

Our definition also highlights the difference between illustration and narrative fine art – an illustration adds to an existing story, whereas narrative fine art suggests a story or stories of its own – it does not accompany a separate story.  

With both definitions we can also challenge the History of Art: if the definition of an illustration is to seek to illuminate and augment something which begins life as words... then many of the great masterpieces of fine art are actually all illustrations!

 

All the great paintings which began their lives as stories from the Bible were produced, not only to decorate Churches, but to educate and inform the illiterate masses.  

All of those paintings of the Greek Myths?

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne

 Piero Pollaiuolo, Apollo and Daphne

Etc etc., by the above definition are in fact illustrations.  

Now for many ,considering this with only a modern perspective, to suggest such works of art are illustrations would be unforgivable – after all illustration is a commercial discipline and therefore a nasty dirty, business. But let us not forget that prior to the Renaissance artists were lowly creatures. They did not have the status in society that artists now enjoy and their work was produced to commission. It was a trade like many others – though a highly skilled one of course. And at the time there was no differentiation between art and illustration. Illustration, in fact, did not exist. Nor did Art with a capital A. There were just artists, making paintings designed both to decorate and to educate and elevate.   And there are other examples of what we now regard as illustration hidden within the discipline we now refer to as fine art: the magnificent early illustrated manuscripts of Europe:

 

Book of Hours, Valencia 1460

– and what about the Bayeaux Tapestry?  Scott McCloud and Bryan Talbot consider it a comic. I’m inclined to agree: it has all the basic components of sequential narrative illustration, i.e comics.   But I don’t want to bring the wrath of the fine art establishment down on my shoulders: perhaps whilst recognising that illustration as we know it today is firmly rooted in the art of both Early and Medieval Europe we can add a further qualifier to our tentative definition –

An illustration is defined by its purpose and its content: If it seeks to illuminate something, to convey information or add dimensions to a story - and it is designed to be viewed in reproduction - then it’s probably an illustration. 

Because it is the production of images for reproduction which really differentiates cojntemporary illustration from thepaintings of the past. It was the advent of the printing press whic led directly to the development of the discipline we now call illustration.

The earliest examples of such work are the illustrated Herbals of Europe. These books often had woodblock printed illustrations. Unfortunately equally often they bore little relation to the actual herbs they were supposed to identify…(Pavord 2005).

However, the discipline of botanical Illustration continued to develop and the 18^th and 19thC (Just leaping forward a little) saw a great flowering of illustrative talent in the form of satirical and political cartoons. From Benjamin Franklin in the USA to Honoré Daumier in France and James Gillray in the UK the practise of lampooning one’s political leaders became an essential part of contemporary culture (not just in the countries I’ve listed of course). And it was these political cartoons which heralded the beginning of the comic in the West. The history of comics – or Manga -  is rather different in Japan of course – but that’s beyond the scope of this post. 

Comics and graphic novels are undoubtedly illustration. They don’t, however, always conform to the ‘add dimensions’ part of our working definition as some don’t have any words at all. Some academics now refer to them as ‘sequential narrative illustration’ but that’s a bit clumsy for our purposes and anyway I think we all know a comic when we see one don’t we? Or do we? Where do The Secret or The Depository (OP) fit into this? Well I’d call them graphic novels or comics. Either way they are well worth ‘reading’ if you are unfamiliar with them, both are by the illustrator Andrzej Klimowski. Someone else worth seeking out is Jason – his hybrid creatures illuminate the human condition and contemporary life beautifully. He creates both 'silent' comics and comics with words.

Comics are still seen as sub literate by many, in fact the adoption of the term ‘Graphic Novel’ is an effort to distance contemporary work from this unwelcome reputation. So you sometimes come across anomalies such as works of say twenty pages being referred to as graphic novels. To me these are still comics. And the term Graphic Novel only describes a book length narrative. But I am a pedant. Whatever you care to call them they are still illustration and they bring  me almost to the end of this somewhat discursive ramble on what illustration is.  

Reading through this post I can see one or two things I’ve omitted (one or two hundred more like!). For example Hogarth is a major figure in the development of what we now call illustration and I haven’t mentioned him. Well I have now. And I shall also do a post focussing on his work sometime in the future - so that takes care of Hogarth.  

As for the other omissions, well, they will have to stand. A whirlwind tour such as this can only include so much. I do hope however that I have destroyed the myth that illustration is a style, not a discipline in its own right. We have looked, very briefly, at illustration’s role in design and packaging – it has even been used to decorate stores, helping to create the store’s brand;  we have seen how it can help convey information or add to a story – or even tell one without any words. And we have also seen that illustration has a long and illustrious history.  

And it is still developing: from wonderful children's books to t-shirts to design work for clothing stores such as Marks and Spencers and companies such as Howies. Illustration is a dynamic discipline which I think makes our world a visually more interesting and exciting place.

Okay, I’m an evangelist!

Thanks to Sonya for giving me the impetus to write this post.

I apologise for the problems with font size and any typos I've missed- unfortunately Typepad doesn't seem to like documents imported from Word. I don't blame it. I don't like Word either. If you spot any mistakes or things which don't make sense please let me know in the comments and I'll rectify them. Thanks!

I did no research for this post - it all came from my head as a result of reading and thinking and observing over a few years- words waiting to be born, you might say.  So there's no bibliography, however apart from the books linked in the text you might also find the following interesting:

Illuminations

There is an essay in Illuminations called Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction which is very interesting. Actually all of Walter Benjamin's work is interesting, and that of his colleague Theodore Adorno - particularly his work on the 'Culture Industry'. Very relevant to Western Culture today

Pictures and Words

Hand to Eye

The Picture Book

The Fundamentals of Illustration

 

Sketchbook Project!

Create a Free Slideshow

I finally sent off my sketchbook to the Arthouse Sketchbook Project today. I posted about this a while back but then I completely changed what I was doing - I just ran out of ideas for the way I'd chosen to interpret my theme. So I came up with another idea: stick several of the horribly thin pages together, cover them in paint and collage, then draw whatever I saw in the paint marks and come up with some words to accompany them. Though there are a few pages I'm not so happy with amazingly this rather experimental approach resulted in a series of images I wouldn't have arrived at any other way and I enjoyed the process of putting it together. I also learned more about paint by doing this. Though I doubt I'd ever use this method of image making again,  I feel I got a lot out of the project one way and another.

I'm also in the process of making a short video flip through but I've got to re-do the sound, so I made a slideshow in the meantime. I know you can't really see the words here, but I'll be reading them in the video.

Hope you're all enjoying your holidays!

Hands and Holidays

Ink on paper.

Felt quite odd swapping the pen from hand to hand to alternate these drawings. There are a couple of blind contours in there.

I know these sketches are hardly seasonal but I rarely do seasonal drawings - so many others do them so well I don't feel the desire to! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season - full of good food and festivities and surrounded by those you love.

Thank you for all your support over the last year - your visits and comments are deeply appreciated.

See you soon!

Sketch time

 

Those brownish lines are actually hatching done in grey - my scanner didn't like them.

And this guy has a blue shirt but the scanner didn't like that either.

I took my other hand out sketching yesterday morning - just my usual subject, people in cafes. Trying to sketch fast with my right hand proved quite tricky but these two turned out okay. The straight(!) lines are so shaky because when I draw with my right hand I keep my hand right off the paper. This is something my old drawing tutor was always telling us to do but I could never quite manage it with my left hand for some reason. It comes naturally with my right.

Do you keep your hand off the paper when you draw, or do you rest it?

The Best Laid Plans...

So I knew that having been ill and being rather behind (and still immensely tired) I would not be making an Art History post this week. I thought, instead, I would prepare it for next Wednesday but unfortunately the book I wanted from the library has not arrived as the mobile library is unable to get here due to the snow we had last night...

So instead of that I'm going to write post about Illustration - what it is and why it can't be reduced a style. This is partly in response to something Sonya raised the other week following my post about Botticelli and also something I have thought about independently as it strikes me that illustration can sometimes be a poorly understood discipline. So if you've any thoughts about illustration you'd care to share, keep them in mind for next Wednesday!

What was I thinking! I don't have time unfortunately :-(.

Art History posting will resume after the holidays - and that includes the piece about illustration. Thanks for your patience.

EDM 24 in orange and blue

Well the flu seems to be all but out of my system - maybe Tamiflu is some use after all - and I woke feeling much brighter this morning. I might even get back to some art work.

Whilst I've been snuffling Mark Mitchell's Power Colour course has continued to arrive in my inbox - I even manged to do one of the exercises he suggests: paint a picture using only two complementary colours.

Now it's probably cheating to paint oranges (well, satsumas) but I wasn't feeling too bright when I did this so thought I'd make it easy on myself. To really explore the potential I need to do something more complicated which would utilise a greater range of the available hues and values, but at least it's given me a suggestion of what you can do with just two colours - and it gave my right hand some more drawing and painting practise.

Before Dave and I went down with the flu I did a few other challenges too - but they aren't very interesting to look at so I wont post them.

Hope you're all keeping well!

Achoo! Sniff sniff

We have swine flu :(.

It has been comparatively mild for both me and Dave apart from the headaches, sore throat and extreme tiredness (me) and the sneezing and stuffed up nose (Dave - so bad last night he had to go sleep sitting up on the sofa).

It's day five now and I'm beginning to be interested in doing things again so I will catch up with everything soon I hope.

It's incredibly virulent this virus - it spreads so quickly. Whole groups of people go down with it at the same time, yet it manifests slightly differently in everybody. If you haven't had it - stay healthy!

Life Drawing

 

Well, really they aren't - these are from photos of life models. Nevertheless I was surprised at what I managed to do with my right hand. Particularly as both the images and my sketchbook were small - in the photo of the woman standing I couldn't make out the details of her hands so she has paws, still, in some respects I did better than I would with my left...now there's food for thought. There is a spontaneity in my right handed drawings which isn't always there when I draw with my left. Mind you the watercolour application leaves a little to be desired- I find a brush quite hard to handle with my non-dominant hand :-).

I'm going to continue drawing with my right hand - I want to see where it takes me.

Charles Reid

I really love the way Charles Reid handles his brush:

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Done your Christmas shopping yet? :)

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi – Sandro Botticelli

There are two words which come to my mind when I think of Botticelli: linear and flowing. His images are full of flowing wraps, dresses and hair – and this flow is described through the masterly use of linear rhythm.   Though in the latter period of his life he painted only religious paintings it is his mythological paintings from the 1480s for which he is now known. In fact he executed some beautiful altarpieces during the same period, and carried out a number of commissions for Madonnas for wealthy patrons. He also contributed to the frescoes decorating the walls of the Sistine Chapel – though Michelangelo’s ceiling tends to overshadow the work of the other artists who worked on the Chapel.

But it is the mythological paintings which I too prefer, so they will be the paintings I look at in this post.

Pallas and The Centaur, C 1482, Tempera on Canvas, 204 x 147.5cm

Botticelli was born in 144/45, the youngest surviving child of four. Around age 15 he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, but soon afterwards he changed his plans and became apprenticed to the painter Fra Filippo Lippi in Prato. He was considered the best apprentice and in 1465 Botticelli executed his first work under the supervision of his master. Two years later his apprenticeship ended. He spent the years working hard and developing a reputation (though there are one or two inexplicably uncompleted works from this period) and he also began executing commissions for the Medici family. This connection was to continue throughout his life.

By the time he set  up a workshop in his father’s house in Florence, and received his first big commission, The Virtue of Fortitude from the Sei della Mercanzia in Florence, Botticelli’s distinctive style was already developed. The figures are painted with minimal light and shadow and clear contours.

This is very clearly seen in The Birth of Venus: Venus herself is pale, almost alabaster, and only minimal shading is used to suggest form. The Venus was one of four mythological paintings which Botticelli painted during the 1480s for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco. Not only was the Venus the first nude for 1000 years she was – is - almost life sized!  This must have been deeply shocking at a period when the Christian taboo against portraying nude females continued to linger. 

Birth of Venus, C 1482-1486, Tempera on Canvas, 172.5 cm × 278.5 cm

Some historians argue that Simonetta Vespucci was the model for Venus, and that she was also the reason Botticelli never married as he was in love with her for years, although she herself was already married. Others, such as Hagen and Hagen (2001) say Venus is the product of the artist’s adherence to classical models and a style of drawing which made use of the classical canon of harmony and ideal proportions. Either way it is clear she is not a man with breasts as is often the case in paintings from this period!  

Surrounding Venus are three figures: on the left we have Zephyrus, the Wind of the West, blowing Venus ashore with his companion Chloris. She is surrounded by roses, as roses were said to appear wherever Venus set foot. The shell she rides in on symbolises fertility as does the water, but in addition the shell also symbolises sensuous pleasure and sexuality.The figure on the right is Hora – the cornflowers on her dress indicate this. And everywhere is rhythm and movement.

The desire to express  life through movement was an idea greatly valued by the Romans. Rediscovered statues from the Roman period had impressed the Renaissance painters deeply and they considered it important to include such expression in there own work. Botticelli’s linear style was eminently suited to this.

Venus and Mars,  C1483, Tempera on Panel, 69 cm × 173 cm

Even in Venus and Mars, which is an essentially static image, there is movement in the folds of the clothing and the arrangement of the limbs which leads the eye around the painting  in a soft sweeping manner. Above and around Venus and Mars four satyrs play mischievously, which create the necessary expression of life – though none it seems can restore Mars to consciousness. Botticelli’s  masterly ability to convey form though minimal shading is demonstrated to great effect in the depiction of Mars, and the softness of the palette creates an otherworldly, ethereal feel which befits the subject beautifully.

Primavera, C 1482,  Tempera on Panel, 203 cm × 314 cm

The Primavera, too, employs a restrained palette, though here the alabaster figures contrast with the dark tree trunks and foliage behind. Two flashes of colour:Venus’ red cape, and Mercury’s robe stand out against this deep contrast. Zephyrus is in this painting too: on the right, again with Chloris who is running from him. Next to Chloris is Flora, who is in fact Chloris - confused? The story is as follows:  Zephyrus raped Chloris, then turned her into the goddess Flora and married her. There are a considerable number of rapes in Greek mythology.

On the other side of Venus are three dancing figures believed to be the three Graces. Note how the bellies of all the women are full and rounded (like Van Eyck's women) and their breasts, by modern standards,  are smallish. Hips and thighs are full too. Even though this was an ideal of beauty it seems  to be rather closer to the reality of many women’s bodies than any ideals we have today.

Because this image is of Venus announcing the arrival of spring there are flowers everywhere and the trees are already fruiting. Yet the discord on the right between Zephyrus and Chloris seems a strange inclusion – all is not well in this garden, despite spring’s coming. Some historians believe this was commissioned and painted for a wedding: if so then the inclusion of Zephyrus and Chloris seems an even odder decision – certainly not a myth I would like depicted at the beginning of my married life. But of course we don’t know any of the facts around the painting’s creation for sure – even the commission for the four paintings by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is not certain.

The 1480s were the high point of Botticelli’s career,  by 1502 he had very little employment and this continued until his death in 1510. His work remained in Churches and private collections but little attention was paid to it until the 19thC. In 1893  a monograph was published, this was followed by more books and papers being written about Botticelli than any other artist between 1900 and 1920 – and it would appear that this sudden popularity made him an influential painter in the development of Art Nouveau. Now we regard Botticelli as a master and it seems surprising that this has not always been so, but his decorative linear style was out of fashion for a long time. It is only in the 20^th and 21^st centuries that we have really come to appreciate his work.

Bibliography

Deimling B 2004,  Botticelli, Taschen

Gombrich, E H, 1994 On the Renaissance, Phaidon

Gordon D 2003, 15th Century Italian Paintings, National Gallery Co. Ltd.