Illustration as a Fine Art

Illustrations are generally created to tell a story by graphic symbols. To many connoisseurs of art this involvement of illustration with story content precludes it from the elect category of the so-called fine arts and relegates it to a lower level, sometimes misnamed the “minor” arts. The arguments over the basic concepts of major and minor, fine and applied arts, are old indeed, just as the spirited discussions over the relative merits of pure and program music in literary circles and the recent controversy over the abstract and the realistic in contemporary poetry. There is no necessity to repeat them all here, and yet, considering the number of times the position of the “modern” artist has been stated and restated in contemporary criticism, it might present a new challenge if we would present the case of the illustrator today. His profession, in all its many aspects, does after all offer the most tangible means for the creative artist to earn a living, and most of the leading contemporary artists have in one way or another participated in this field.