Gwybodaeth Modiwlau
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Lecture | 11 x 2 Hour Lectures |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | Essay Essay 2,000 words + annotated images | 50% |
Semester Exam | 2 Hours Examination 2 questions in 2 hours | 50% |
Supplementary Assessment | Supplementary Assessment Essay 2,000 words + annotated images | 50% |
Supplementary Exam | 2 Hours Supplementary Examination 2 questions in 2 hours | 50% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
demonstrate a critical understanding of the technical, socio-historical and art historical contexts of the illustrators and their work;
explain the function of illustration and the role of the illustrator, book designer and typographer over time;
evaluate ways in which illustrators have interpreted texts and drawn for the different print media used in book production;
identify period styles and historic print media, demonstrating an understanding and sure handling of technical terminology.
Brief description
By the 1860s, established easel painters such as Millais, Burne Jones, Hunt, Leighton and Sandys were illustrating for inexpensive wide-circulation periodicals. Their pious scenes of family life, unrequited love, deathbed melodramas and idealized visions of medieval chivalry tell us much about the codes, conduct and aspirations of middle-class Victorians. Opposed to such mechanization and mass production, William Morris established the Kelmscott Press in 1891 to hand print books like medieval craftsmen and prove that 'a work of utility might also be a work of art'. The twentieth-century private presses such as Golden Cockerel and Gregynog were a legacy of Morris,s ideology. The propriety of Kelmscott books found their antithesis, however, in the erotic and often scandalous illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley. Richly patterned, elaborate in their artificiality and steeped in the frustrations of male sexual desire, they sum up Fin de Siecle decadence.
With the British Empire at its height, London became a magnet for international artists who came to work for the great publishing houses. Frenchman Edmund Dulac and Kay Neilson from Denmark joined indigenous talent such as Beatrix Potter and Arthur Rackham whose bizarre anthropomorphized tree roots and absurd-looking gnomes would influence generations of illustrators from Walt Disney to Chris Riddell. Potter and Rackham were the first illustrators to see their watercolours photographed and reproduced by means of the new colour halftone process that has for over a century has remained the principal means of printing illustrated books. The closing decades of the twentieth century witnessed the increasing internationalization of the illustrated book market. The likes of Charles Keeping, Maurice Sendak and Chris Riddell demonstrate the continuing importance of book illustration, its potential to entertain, provoke thought and delight.
Aims
This module examines the nature and role of illustration in British books and periodicals since 1800, considering the relationship between image, text and process. There will be opportunities to handle rare private and commercial press books in the National Library of Wales and the School of Art collections. [This module is especially useful to fine art students who will be specializing in book illustration.]
Content
- Approaching the Study of Illustration. Module overview and assessments explained. Illustration in Britain before 1800.
- Thomas Bewick and the Commercial Illustrated Book.
- The Golden Age of British Book Illustration: The 1860s.
- The Victorian Soap: Illustrations for Periodicals of the 1860s.
- The Refinement of Colour: from Colour Wood Engraving to Halftone.
- Fin de Siècle I: Aubrey Beardsley and the Art Nouveau Book.
- Fin de Siècle II: William Morris and Private Press Historicism.
- British Private Presses from the Vale to Golden Cockerel, 1890-1940.
- Hands On: a feast of rare books at the National Library of Wales gathered together in your honour (2 hours).
- From Boxwood and Zinc Plate to Cellulose: Commercial Illustrated Books 1920-1950.
- Continuity and New Departures: Illustration since 1950.
Module Skills
Skills Type | Skills details |
---|---|
Communication | Articulating ideas through seminar discussions and presentations, as well as academic writing skills in the essay. |
Improving own Learning and Performance | Independent study through seminar assignment research and preparation. Management of time. |
Information Technology | Information retrieval from various academic research portals and online museum/library collection databases. |
Personal Development and Career planning | Emphasis on professional presentation of research and annotated bibliography using MLA style documentation. |
Problem solving | Creative thinking. Analysis and interpretation of illustrated |
Research skills | Academic research and writing skills. Image sourcing. |
Subject Specific Skills | Grounding in the materials used and techniques employed in the production of illustrated books. Handling of rare books. |
Team work | Seminar group discussion and presentation. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6