Summer project – What is Illustration?

Cave painting of a bison is the Altamira caves in Spain – taken from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AltamiraBison.jpg

What is illustration? This was a question I asked myself when I started my summer project. For which I had to pick one artist or movement to research and write about. So I began with illuminated manuscripts which were featured in the Image lecture.

I began with the dictionary and the definition of illustration and illustrate : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/illustration?q=illustration Oxford dictionary definition. To illustrate comes from lustrare which means to illuminate thus leading me to illuminated manuscript. Most illuminated manuscripts were created predominantly in the Middle ages and laterally in the Renaissance. The word manuscript comes from the Latin for handwritten. which makes sense as illuminated manuscripts were handwritten over long periods of time by monks for the most part. If a manuscript was to be illustrated it would be sent to an illuminators. When moveable type and the print press came to the fore front want for the expensive and labour intensive manuscripts died out. Manuscripts like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels were written one vellum which was made of sheep or cow skins. So large manuscripts could use a herd of sheep to make.

Image of Christ from the Aberdeen Bestiary. Taken from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AberdeenBestiaryFolio004vChristInMajesty.jpg

Here’s a wee link to a YouTube clip of a Horrible Histories episode that explained it better once it gets past monk sign language : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wVTP2016G0

Illuminated manuscripts are viewed as one of the earliest examples of illustration however some argue that ” Art was illustrative long before it was holy” ( Illustration, A Visual History. Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast.  Abrams, New York, 2008) Therefore can cave paintings such as those at Lascaux and Altamira be viewed as illustration. Cave painting can be seen as man recording and illustrating the world around him albeit before text. I believe that cave painting can be viewed as illustration as it was integral to the visual mass communicative language of early man.

Now this lead me to the age-old question of what is the difference between fine art and illustration. In “Illustration, A  Visual History” by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, states that ” illustration is a clearly defined act of making art, the goal of which is to illuminate the printed page.” Illustration is not as some view it a lesser art in comparison to what is viewed as high or fine art. Illustration is art for the populace. It is a form of mass communication for a mass audience. There are many similarities between illustration today and the fine art of the Renaissance period. Whose artists, such as Durer used mass communicative processes such as printmaking to sell their artwork or to make it for themselves. There is no denying that illustration is sometimes very commercial but then again so is fine art. I feel that the idea at fine art is a higher art form is false and that it is almost impossible to completely separate fine art and illustration. They both have as much merit as each other.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

Oxford definition of fine art : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fine-art?q=fine+art

Here is Illustration Art’s view on fine art and illustration : http://illustrationart.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/old-question-finally-answered.html

Heller, S. Chwast, S. (2008) Illustration: A Visual History. New York. Abrams.

All of the above links were accessed on the 10.11.2013.

Hand prints – its all about hands tonight

My first lecture of the semester showed us among other things cave art. Cave art is something I find really fascinating, especially the stencilled hand prints. There is something really powerful about them. they are a direct physical link to the past. The reason I’m talking about them today is that I read an interesting article on the National Geographic website, which I will link at the end, which concerned a recent study of cave art hand prints made by a archaeologist Dean Snow. Snow has examined and measured hand prints on cave walls from several different sites and concluded that contrary to belief, that three quarters of the hand prints belonged to women. Snow theory follows in the workings of John Manning, who worked out differences in hand and finger size between men and women. Now I’m kind of sceptical about this male/ female definite hand size difference. Manning worked on the difference between finger lengths whereas an evolutionary biologist by the name of R. Dale Guthrie performed a similar analysis but he measured the width of the palm from the thumb. He deduced that most the prehistoric hand prints belonged to teenage boys. But with all things prehistory we can only imagine their society and its structure, we will never really know. In my opinion the hand prints are like signatures. But why create artwork at all. Some believe that if the women created the artwork it would have a lot to do with the wellbeing of the group and to record events. However others believe that if it was teenage boys creating the cave art they would draw only what they liked, hulking animals and naked ladies, sex and violence in other words, which paints the adolescent male in very broad primitive strokes. Which links in to the outdated perception that cave art and sculpture, such as the Venus figures were prehistoric porn. This has pretty much been disproved as they were most likely fertility figures, made for good luck, protection, religion or spirituality. Most likely the handprints were made by men and women, it just so happens nobody’s said so before. I always assumed the hand prints were the artists (of both sex) making there mark or some sort of group ritual. In my mind cave art would have been a shared experience for an entire community.

National Geographic article: HUGHES, V. Were the first artists mostly women? Available at : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20131011news-caveart&utm_campaign=Content#close-modal

Also here is a link to a BBC clip of some very early cave art featuring handprints from the Altamira cave in Spain :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18459492

All of the above links were accessed on the 13.10.2013.

I’d also like to say thank you to all the people who have liked, commented on and follow my blog. 🙂

first ever blog post

so… blogging hmmm. This is a blog revolving around my communication design context lectures. It’s a project blog. So todays lecture was all about the Origins of Communication, the birth of symbolic language followed by a discussion. I found it really interesting, old pictographic codes and languages. At the beginning of the summer I went to London and went to the Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind exhibition at the British Museum. Cave art, like the drawings on the walls of the Chauvet caves in France is really just the beginning of prehistoric art. what really amazed me was a large boar sculpture, it was unusual in its size as most of the other 3D craved objected were small. Whereas this was almost life-size. We will never truly know what compelled early man to make these sculptures and painting. But there is something fascinating about, I especially like the stencilled handprints. they are so eerie and simplistic, a direct link to our ancestors. But are they the signature of those who created the paintings, some right of passage or prehistoric mans version of I was here. As this is a time before written word and in some cases before verbal language.

Even today the true purpose of cave art is unknown, what we know are just theories. Are they functional recording of real life events like a diary or are they symbolic representations of something deeper and less mundane. Or both. Right now my opinion is probably both.

well that’s my first blog post, I think I will go read some books and do some research.

The picture is a postcard I got from the British Museum and here are two links for the British Museum to do with the exhibition Ice age art: the arrival of the modern mind : http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/past_exhibitions/2013/ice_age_art.aspx and http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/past_exhibitions/2013/ice_age_art/about_the_exhibition.aspx

The culture show also did a lovely feature on the exhibition : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qrmpz

Unfortunately the full episode is no longer available but there are still clips.

All of the above links were accessed on the 19.9.2013.