Journal of Illustration - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2014

A unique grassroots project is under way to write the first-ever textbook on the History of Illustration. The effort, which benefits from a base of over 30 writers internationally, is backed by a consortium of more than 60 educators, researchers, curators and illustration practitioners collaborating under the aegis of the History of Illustration Project (HIP). The volume, now in development with Fairchild Books (a Bloomsbury imprint), evolved initially through an online conversation about the need for more critical assessment of illustration and its history. Many of the points of that debate are detailed in the article that follows. The summary rationale for the HIP textbook (of which I am lead editor) is to expand the art historical investigation of illustration and address its synergistic relationship to history, science, visual culture and literature.

From its obscure origins in antiquity the alchemical tradition enjoyed a late flowering in seventeenth-century Europe with the appointment of alchemists at European Courts and a profusion of alchemical publications within the rapidly expanding output of printed books. Works, such as Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) and Robert Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi (1617, 1621) incorporated fine engravings, with imagery that reflected the Renaissance spirit of synthesis, resemblance, analogy and allegory, and the deployment of a widely accepted range of symbols and emblems. Microcosm and Macrocosm, matter and spirit, the human and the scientific were presented by Fludd and others as a unified cosmos, linked by complex systems of analogy and resemblance, within a framework of NeoPlatonism and Christianity. Alchemical literature employed a balance of text and image, in which visual argument, using analogy, resemblance, emblem and allegory, complemented text. The question of why this system gave way, in the late seventeenth century and ensuing Enlightenment to modern scientific and other serious discourse, progressively stripped of images, is discussed with reference to the writings of Francis Bacon, Edmund Burke, Ernst Gombrich, WJT Mitchell and Marshall McLuhan. The enduring influence of alchemy upon visual artists, from William Blake to Yves Klein and Anselm Kiefer, reflects a continuing concern with the integration of the material and the spiritual, and challenges a linguistics-based semiotics as well as an excessively reductionist science.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw many women pursue an interest in the natural sciences, particularly disciplines such as botany which were deemed suitable for their ‘delicate minds’. However most women were not given the opportunity to practice their science as anything more than a feminine accomplishment. As a result women often remained amateurs, with the public sphere of professional science out of their reach.

This article focuses on two women who attempted to pursue scientific careers as illustrators, but who also actively engaged with scientific research and made new and exciting discoveries. Exploring the lives and works of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) and Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) it is clear that they strived to work outside of their prescribed domain: the private sphere of the home.

Through assessing the degree to which these women were confined by the ideals of domesticity and the practicalities of working within the private sphere, this article considers the effect of such constraints on their scientific practice and to what extent the domestic setting is reflected in their work. In fact it can even be argued that the domestic and decorative nature of their illustrations brought them greater success in the public sphere than their scientific endeavours and consequently secured them lasting popularity and esteem.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) was repeatedly picked up for publication; however, it was slow to be illustrated. Austen tells the story of the Bennet family, as the five girls in the family come of age and are seeking husbands. Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet become the titular characters, and have inspired millions of readers for them to root for their union. The book, of which the countless film adaptations attest, has found a lasting audience. Through an examination of the publishers and the various artists that worked on the editions, I want to examine how the book epitomized trends in the publishing industry. Key publishers like Richard Bentley and J. M. Dent, hired some of the most important illustrators of the time, including John Gilbert, John Proctor, C. E. Brock, Hugh Thomson and Chris Hammond. Through an examination of the artists and the illustrations, we can begin to examine the popularity of the book and why this endearing novel’s popularity is so lasting. Focusing on characters, fanciful clothing and revelatory conversations, these illustrators contributed to the books’ position as one of the most popular romance novels of the century.

Casting a proximate net across concurrent artistic, social and political activity in relation to the Puffin Picture books reveals a cultural codification that structured the creation of the populist, pedagogical and practical print practices that materalise in the books. In framing and forming a greater understanding around the circumstances of conception of the books has formed a complex multiplicity of interior views that at once supports, calibrates and challenges familiar early twentieth-century artistic and cultural narratives.

This article proposes that the emerging field of illustration research embraces practice-led research, and will argue that it benefits practice outside of formal academic research. The author’s practice-led Ph.D. research provides the tools that will be used to investigate illustration methodologies within a research practice. These can be adopted to complement industry-oriented, brief-led ways of working to provide long-term transferable skills, enabling illustrators to be entrepreneurial, and give them a robust set of methods to identify and interrogate their subject matter.

American fun-house mirror

American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, Deborah Solomon (2013) 1st ed., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 494 pp., ISBN: 9780374113094, h/bk, $28.00 USD