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:

Questions about the art of illustration. When and how did people first begin to illustrate? How did these illustrations differ from ours in execution? Of what use was a wood-block print? To what did this lead? What preparatory training does a good illustrator need? Tell something of the process, or how illustrations are made. Tell something of the history of illustration in the United States. Name some of the best-known illustrators. Who is your favorite illustrator? why? Is it the subject of his illustration or his execution that appeals to you the more?

To the Teacher: The lesson may be assigned by topics to various pupils for preparation and recitation.