Icons

Another piece of two-dimensional art from Medieval times is the icon. These days, the word "icon" has been used to represent celebrities, and even people who are famous for being famous..... :-) ......but I digress....

Icons from the past were often painted with gold highlights and painted on wood, or wooden 2-part screens, or (3-part) triptychs. Many of these were only a few inches high, although many were depicted on large pieces. These were usually of a religious nature, and represented personages, or popes or saints or the Virgin Mary with Child, or represented an event or a story, like the "illuminations" of last entry, and many times from the Bible. These icons are usually placed in ancient churches, and cathedrals (we're talking Europe) or museums of modern times. They are not hard to find actually, and I have bought several from shops, quite reasonably, just to decorate the entertainment center in my home. They sit quite nicely on top of the TV, for example.

I have to report that the shops I have frequented for these purchases are often in Mexico.

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 However, it usually has an outdated look, because many times these illuminations were done some 600 years ago, and tended to accompany the pages of text written and scrolled on by monks, who were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.

Speaking of black and white illustrations, let's talk about black and white in general, and of course we are talking about 2-dimensional black and white. When I was in college it was sometimes referred to as "graphics", or "graphic arts", actually!

One way to address black and white art is to think of etchings, and of woodcuts in particular, for now. Woodcuts are often implemented in a soft pine board, (medium-size, for the sake of handling) with special woodcutting knives, or tools. Sometimes people draw on the board first, to indicate where they want to cut, or remove, material. To remove material (wood) creates the area(s) which will become white, in the print-out. Sometimes people paint first - usually black - onto the pine board, and this will become the indication of where to leave the wood alone, as it represents where the artist wants the black to remain.

Other times, a person will simply start cutting, with one or more tools, and after a while, will take a print, to see how it's coming along: sort of a "from the gut" approach, for black and white.

Illustration

Another form of 2-dimensional art is illustration. Illustration comes in many forms, including books (and children's books in particular), posters, murals (again), decoration, advertising, poetry, and even mapwork.

Comes to mind the memorable illustrations from my childhood, in Mother Goose: so many poems, and most of them had a skillful and charming line-illustration in accompaniment. There were long, puffy skirts, ruffly, broad-brimmed bonnets, excellent animals, some of whom who talked, pretty English-style trees on the horizon, and of course to top it all off, Mother, with her ringlets, riding on the bridled Goose.

Illustrations can also come in novels, to mark the onset of certain chapters, and can be simple but well-designed graphics in a woodcut style print, in black and white only. This spring I've enjoyed reading the novel "Cross Creek," from the '30's if I remember right, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, (she was the author of "The Yearling"). This book contained a lovely bunch of these black-and-white illustrations, picturing the "swamp" country in Florida, and which additionally kept me enthralled the whole time!