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Ladies Football a Ladies Match Giclee Print Molini, Walter 18 in. x 24 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted Early illustrated books were modelled on the illuminations of medieval manuscripts, whose style was copied in coloured woodcuts. The first printer to make use of illustrations was Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg in 1461. The illustrations in Breydenbach ' "Peregrinationes in Montem Syon"' (Mainz 1486) show a marked advance upon previous efforts in the art of woodcutting. The illustrator, Erhard Reuwich, joined the expedition as special artist to record the pilgrimage.
Two other remarkable German illustrated books made their appearance at Nuremberg towards the close of the 15th century. The "Schatzbehalter" of 1491 and Hartmann Schedel's "Liber Chronicarum" of 1493. Wolgemut was the artist responsible for the cuts of both. The most remarkable Italian illustrated book of the 15th century was the "'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili"' of Francesco Colonna, printed by Aldus.
In Paris the printed book kept in closer touch with the art of the illuminator than anywhere else. Books of private prayer were printed on vellum with borders and pictures gilded in the style of manuscripts. Prominent printers and publishers of these were Philippe Pigouchet, Jean du Pré, Thielman Kerver and Antoine Vérard. The early English press is not outstanding for its illustrations. Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson all issued illustrated editions of the Canterbury Tales. In the 16th century the talents of the foremost artists found expression in the service of the printed book, among them Dürer, Hans Burgkmair, Holbein and Cranach. Holbein designed book decorations in the form of initials and borders. Towards the end of the century Theodore de Bry and his sons brought out at Frankfurt a wonderful series of illustrated travel books. Foxe's Book of Martyrs ( 1563) was one of the most popular illustrated books of the period.
The 16th century saw the woodcut at its best, but by the middle of the period a rival craft: had begun to assert itself, the art of copper-plate engraving. This belongs to the intaglio group of processes, and illustrations executed in this technique cannot be printed at the same time as the letter-press. Sometimes the engravings were printed in blank spaces left for the purpose or on thin paper which was afterwards pasted into the Wtext; sometimes the engravings were worked on separate sheets of paper gathered together at the end of the book. In this form, known as 'plates, the illustrations were no longer an integral part of the printed book. During the 17th century illustrations were rare in English books except for title pages and portraits. The outstanding feature of 18th-century illustration were the delicate engravings of the French 'livres à vignettes'. In the latter part of the century Thomas Stothard was busy with plates for Robinson Crusoe, Clarissa Harlowe and Tristram Shandy.
The art of the woodcut was revived by Thomas Bewick whose illustrated editions of Gay's Fables ( 1779), Select Fables ( 1784) and General History of Quadrupeds ( 1740) mark a new era in book illustration. New methods and principles were introduced and henceforth we speak of the craft as 'wood engraving'.
In the 19th century the use of illustrations in books of every kind greatly increased. Wood engraving was the principal process employed, but lithography, invented early in the century, also became very popular and was carried to great perfection in France. Soon after 1830 the field for wood engraving was enlarged by the use of illustrations in weekly journals, and additional impetus was given to this movement by the founding of the Illustrated London News in 1842. Steel engravings of a fine quality were a special feature of The Keepsake and other annuals.
Bewick and his contemporaries, Stothard, Blake and Flaxman were succeeded by Cruikshank, Hablot Browne ('Phiz'), illustrator of Dickens, Ainsworth, Lever and John Leech. The 'rural beauties' of Birket Foster, translated in wood by the able Dalziel Brothers, were the delight of the mid-Victorians. The books of Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott mark the following period. In the last decades of the 19th century wood engraving, metal engraving, etching and lithography were challenged as methods of illustration by the onset of mechanical photographic processes for reproducing drawings and paintings.
But in the early years of the present century Vollard began to commission the leading French artists to illustrate various classics with woodcuts, engravings and lithographs, and Maillol's woodcuts to Virgil Eclogues, Derain coloured woodcuts to Pantagruel, Picasso's great series of aquatints for Buffon Natural History and Chagall's brilliant lithographic illustrations to La Fontaine's Fables and the Bible are among the finest book illustrations ever executed. In England Barnett Freedman's lithographs for Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, War and Peace and Anna Karenina marked a new achievement in book illustration.
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