=The antiquity of illustration.= The desire for pictures illustrating
ideas dates back no doubt to the beginning of the world. The cave
dweller left a record of such an ambition on the carved walls of his
rude house and on the handle of his battle ax. Savages made of
themselves living illustrations, by painting their bodies in gay colors
and designs representing their ideas of beauty. The Egyptians used stone
and papyrus for mediums of expression, while a century later parchment
and vellum were used.
Each illustration was a finished piece of work. In order to reproduce
it, the artist must make a new one each time. Then some one discovered
the block print. The design or illustration was cut in wood, then inked
and placed on sheets of paper much as we use block prints now. Playing
cards were produced in this way long before books appeared. It was but a
step from printing a whole page of type to separating the letters so
they could be rearranged and used many times. The Chinese understood
printing with movable type centuries before we ever thought of it.
Since the time the printing press was finally invented there have been
new processes and new methods, but an illustration as such has remained
unchanged. Joseph Pennell tells us in his book on the _Illustration of
Books_ that an illustration “is a design intended to give an artist’s
idea of an incident, episode, or topographical site, or it may be but a
mere diagram referred to by a writer.”
=Requirements for an illustrator.= A good illustrator requires good
preparatory training. He should know how to draw well, and should have a
good education in general subjects, that he may be able to illustrate
intelligently the various subjects that will come before him. He must be
able to select the important things in the author’s work and so
represent them that the attention of the public will be drawn to them.
In order that his pictures may be properly reproduced he must understand
the process and make his work comply with its limitations for good work.
To be successful he must be sure of his material, and his subjects must
please both the author and the general public.
=The process of illustration.= An illustration is usually first sketched
with a pencil on stiff paper or bristol board, the size it is to be when
completed or in some relation to it. That is, it may be enlarged or
reduced when printed. Perhaps the most popular method is to make the
drawing twice as large as the finished print. This pencil sketch is then
corrected and finally drawn in with pen and ink or brush.
The finished drawing is photographed on the plate to be used, and
finished according to some one of many different processes.
=Illustration in the United States.= It was not until after the Civil
War, in 1861, that illustration began to play an important part in the
magazines and books of this country. To be sure, caricature had long
been popular in the newspapers of the day, Thomas Nast having made his
famous political cartoons during the war. Illustration in its more
serious sense, however, received its first awakening when La Farge
illustrated Tennyson’s _Enoch Arden_ and other poems. Some authorities
declare that E. A. Abbey’s pen-and-ink drawings and illustrations of the
works of Goldsmith were the first of importance in America.
Most of our best illustrators have contributed to the leading magazines,
and so we are able to judge their work.
A few of the most prominent names are: