Illustration

The issue, for me, seems to be how illustration is different from art (obviously a lot of images are either, depending on the way you define the categories).  For now, I’m thinking that for the first four to five millenia of “history” (after writing), the distinction didn’t exist because it wasn’t needed.  In retrospect, they represent two ways of looking at the same thing, namely images. When the idea of print materialised (1453, or thereabouts), at least two things happened: a division opened between those who painted or sculpted, and those who printed  (both drew, of course, so that wasn’t part of the equation); that opened up a division between artists–and the system of attribution, oeuvres, prestige that went with it — and others who worked in the burgeoning new industry of print.  The artists were responsible for support of historical ideals–Biblical, mythological; the others now look like the real innovators, the ones who had to figure out how to visualize new places, new discoveries in all the sciences, new devices…