Illuminations

An illumination is simply a colorful illustration found in a book. However, it usually has an outdated look, because many times these illuminations were done some 600 years ago, and tended to accompany the pages of text written and scrolled on by monks, who were often the only people who could read and write in those days.

These illuminations never fill the entire page, but are simply inserted into the beginning of the chapter, up on the top left.

The illuminations often are very poorly drawn, though they are colorful and have nicely done borders (there's that word again) around them. It is painfully clear that those who rendered these illistrations were by no means artists, and were simply instructed to draw something out, according to the contents of the chapter.

I think the illuminations merely have an historical value, if sometimes grotesque and not truly "cultural" in quality, but they are worth noting for the sake of historical (hysterical?) drama.

Etchings on a Metal Plate

Sometimes an etching - another 2-dimensional art form - is done by scratching through a "ground" that has been placed on a rectangular metal plate. This again will show up in two colors, when printed, like black and white, and thus is sometimes called a graphic art.

Even today one will see an etching that has been rendered in "crosshatch", and thus an artist can apply tons of shading, and to many and various degrees, unlike the woodcut.

Historically speaking many etchings were done, even for rough sketches, by some of the finest and most famous artists, say back in the Middle Ages; send me a comment and let me know if you have some of those famous names!

Sometimes the "ground" can be a SOFT ground, which means a person can "draw" through it with say, a match, from a book of matches - as I have done - instead of scratching through a hard ground on the plate. This can represent a much more casual or "free" mode of drawing.