History of Illustration

In illustration, there are scores of groups or genres with lots of diverse styles and trends which facilitates artist to air a thought. History of illustration has always been a foundation for envisaging a thoughts and ideas and has also been a way to persuade the community in terms of beliefs and trends.

Contemporary book illustration starts off in the 15th century block books in which the text and the illustration were engraved on the same block. Book illustration has pursued the development of the printing processes.

During the 16th and 17th century, Copperplate engraving and etching tended to substitute the woodcut but it was not until the close of the 18th century; the art was revamp by Thomas Bewick's ingenious use of wood engraving and Senefelder's invention of lithography. These two procedures has motivated the making of the illustrated books and magazines to the great extent and was make the most of by the masters, such as -- Daumier, Doré and Gavarni.

Nearly all illustrated books created in the early years of the nineteenth century entails wood engravings. By 1860, there was a pervasive use of a color printing. Chromolithography had been used for a short time but the images printed in this way were quite gaudy that it assail the eyes and soon after, there was an introduction of a photographic processes which had a considerable impact on the illustration.

Than there was a technical development which was the introduction of the offset printing, a commercial variation of the lithographic process, in the 1920s.

Offset printing allowed for a variation in the placement of a text and illustration, ensuing in an increased integration between the image and the text. Offset printing present quite a lot of advantages –

• the reproduction of extremely fine lines,
• a wide variety of paper stock could be utilize,
• original artwork did not have to be upturned prior to a reproduction.

During the twentieth century, the illustrated children's book come out as an important constituent of the publishing industry. And development in the print technology have made possible for the illustrators to work in a variety of different ways. The array of styles observed in the illustrated child’s books is an immense example of it.