Historical Trends
in Illustration
(Condensed)
(part I)
The (Very) Early Years
•
•
•
•
Caves
Hieroglyphics
Etc.
“Modern” illustration as
yet impossible
– Implies mass
communication and
therefore mass
production
The Early
Years
Medieval
Manuscript
Illumination
The Vienna Genesis
Jacob Wrestling the Angel
- early 6th C
Getting
Closer…
Title Page for the Gospel of St. Mark
Book of Kells
8th C
Early Attempts at
Reproduction
• Begins with Guttenberg (1450s)
and his moveable type printing
press
• Engraving
– Made images possible, but
dependent on the engraver’s
point of view
• Photo-halftone lithography
– End of the 1800s
– Ushered in the “Golden Age of
Illustration”
Pollaiuolo
Battle of Ten Nude Men, 1470-75
Engraving
• A method of cutting or incising a design into a material,
usually metal, with a sharp tool called a graver. One of the
intaglio methods of making prints
• The print is made by inking such an incised (engraved)
surface and running through a press
• Most contemporary engraving is done in the production of
currency, certificates, etc.
Robert Nanteuil
Portrait of Louis XIV, 17th C
Detail of same
Paul Revere
The Boston Massacre
March 5, 1770
Etching
• An etching needle is used to
draw into a wax ground
applied over a metal plate
• The plate is then submerged
in a series of acid baths, each
biting into the metal surface
only where unprotected by
the ground
• The ground is removed, ink is
forced into the etched
depressions, the unetched
surfaces wiped, and an
impression is printed
Rembrandt
Self Portrait with
Raised Sabre
1634
Rembrandt
100 Guilders Print, or Christ Healing the Sick – 1648-50
M.C. Escher
Eye, 1946
Mezzotint
• Tonal, rather than linear engraving process
• 17C - used widely as a reproductive printing process (esp.
in England) until photo processes took over in mid-19C
• A copper or steel plate is first worked all over with a
curved, serrated tool called a rocker, raising burrs over the
surface to hold the ink and print as a soft dark tone
• Image is created in lighter tones by scraping out and
burnishing areas of the roughened plate so that they hold
less ink, or none in highlights
• Details sharpened by engraving or etching in a "mixed
mezzotint."
William Say
Sir William Hamilton and Society
Dilettante
(after a ptg by Sir Joshua Reynolds)
1780
Lithography
• Late 1800s - printing from a prepared
flat stone, metal or plastic plate
• A drawing is made on the stone or plate
with a greasy crayon or tusche, and then
washed with water. Ink is applied and
sticks to the greasy drawing but runs off
(or is resisted by) the wet surface
allowing a print-- a lithograph-- to be
made of the drawing
• The plate is covered with a sheet of
paper and both are run through a press
• For color lithography, separate
drawings/plates are made for each color
and printed in register
Baseball Card
Ty Cobb, 1911
Toulouse Lautrec
Seated Female Clown, 1896
Honoré Daumier
What to you mean by keeping me
waiting for an hour out in the
snow without an umbrella?
1843
(The first
mechanical offset
litho presses were
steam powered)
Marcel Duchamp
L.H.O.O.W., 1919
George Bellows
The Drunk, 1924
Early 19C
• Felix Darley (1822-1888)
• John James Audobon (1785-1851)
• Currier and Ives
– James Merritt Ives
– Nathaniel Currier
– Really a lithography “shop” or studio
Little Nell and her Grandfather - 1888
Felix Darley
Figures in a Landscape Near a
Church - 1850
First Blow for Liberty
• “Most famous 19C
American illustrator”
• Mostly book illustrations
(the dominant mass media
of the era)
Felix Darley
Illustration from a Tale of Two Cities 1870
John James Audubon
Bald Headed Eagle - 1829
- Failed British naval officer
- Fled to US and published comprehensive
bird and mammal anthologies
Audubon
White Gerfalcons
Audubon
Chaffinch, Greenfinch, and Bullfinch - 1827
Currier & Ives
• Really an artist
studio
• “Colored engravings
for the people”
Currier & Ives
Brook Trout Fishing - 1862
Currier & Ives
Express Train - 1870
Currier & Ives
Fire Brigade - 1854
Currier & Ives
A Full Hand - 1884
Mid 19C
• Civil War coverage demanded imagery
– Harper’s Weekly
– Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
• Big names
– Winslow Homer
– Thomas Nast
– Frederic Remington
• Others
– George Catlin, Thomas Moran, Charles
Schreyvogel, Charles M. Russell
• In Europe
– Arthur Boyd Houghton, Gustave Doré
Winslow Homer
Sharpshooter, 1862
(wood engraving)
Winslow Homer
Prisoners from the Front, 1866
Winslow Homer
Watching the Tempest, 1881
Thomas Nast
A Live Jackass.., 1870
Wood
Engravings
Thomas Nast
The Off Year… 1877
Thomas Nast
Boss Tweed - 1871
Thomas Nast
Christmas Eve - 1863
The “Prince of
Caricaturists”
Creator of the modern
images of the
Republican elephant
and Democratic
donkey and Santa
Claus
Thomas Nast
Santa Claus in Camp - Jan 3 1863
Thomas Moran
Children of the Mountain - 1867
Charles M. Russell
Ill (from Indian Old Man Stories)
Frederic Remington
Missing - 1899
Remington
The Bronco Buster - 1909
First big break came
from Outing Magazine
Remington
The Stampede - 1908
“Art is a she-devil of a mistress…”
Remington
The Cavalry Charge - 1907
The most successful European book illustrator of the mid 19th C.
Gustave Doré
Cain and Abel - 1866
Gustave Doré
The Flood - 1866
Gustave Doré
Dante’s Inferno - no.32 - 1861
Gustave Doré
Dante’s Inferno - 1861
Turn of the Century
• Newspapers and then magazines dominate
the scene
– First comic strips appear
• Aubrey Beardsley, Phil May
• Alphonse Mucha, Art Nouveau
• Charles Dana Gibson
– Gibson Girl
• James Montgomery Flagg
• Howard Pyle
– The “father of American illustration”
Halftone Lithography
• Printed imagery in which shades of gray are represented by
a minute pattern of dots of variable size.
• A glass plate (screen) is marked off with crossing lines and
placed before the lens of a camera when photographing for
halftone reproduction
• Each color is printed in dots at an angle
Alponse Mucha
1896
Alphonse Mucha
The Moon, The Evening Star, the Polestar, and the
Morning Star - 1902
Alponse Mucha
1902
Art Nouveau
Alponse Mucha
Sarah Bernhardt
as Gismonda
1895
Alponse Mucha
1896
Alponse Mucha
Dance
1898
Alponse Mucha
The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia
1914
Alponse Mucha
1899
Aubrey Beardsley
Images from Salome by Oscar Wilde - 1893
James
Montgomery
Flagg
1917
James Montgomery Flagg
The Violin Maker - 1907
James Montgomery Flagg
Tragedy and Comedy - 1914
James Montgomery Flagg
1911
James Montgomery Flagg
1911
James Montgomery Flagg
Colier’s Magazine Cover - 1902
First commission at age 12!
Howard Pyle
Attack on a Galleon
1905
He also wrote many of
the stories and books
he illustrated
Howard Pyle - 1903
Howard Pyle
For Harper’s Magazine - 1907
Howard Pyle
The Mermaid
1910
Howard Pyle
The Nation Makers - 1906
Howard Pyle
The Pirate was a Picturesque Fellow
Howard Pyle
Joan of Arc - 1904
Howard Pyle
The Wood Carver’s Shop - 1895
Next week:
Early 20C to present!