I recently read a piece of critical writing about an exhibition where the writer described the work as ‘close to illustration’. The artist had every right to be perplexed. It seemed that there was a divide between ‘real’ art and a lesser form known as illustration. In its narrowest sense illustration refers to a picture that illustrates a text. While it uses all of the same tools of line, colour and composition as those used by a ‘fine artist’ the distinction appears to come from elsewhere.
One apparent qualifier is whether the picture is narrative in form that is, tells a story. That would seem to categorise every painting and sculpture from the Renaissance to Picasso as Cubist, as illustration. Michaelangelo, Delacroix and Gericault told stories. For them that was the function of art and the patrons of their work expected that to be the case. When a contract was written for a religious work such as an altarpiece the terms of the contract were very precise – the Virgin would have a blue dress, St Peter would be carrying specific paraphenalia and have a beard. Did this working to narrative order diminish the final work in any way? Art history tells us no.
All of the Archibald entries tell stories about the sitters – that is the function of a portrait. Does that make them all illustrations? Every landscape artist tells a story about the landscape; every still ilfe painter imbues the objects with a sense of history. Illustrations?
So, where does the distinction between fine art and illustration actually come from? Art history compendiums are of little use in this regard when Hopper, Wyeth and Lowry sit alongside Pollock and Rothko. If storytelling is the divide, then surely Hopper Wyeth and Lowry are illustrators and only those artists who either explore their own inner working or antithetically remove the artist altogether such as the Minimalists did, are ‘real artists’. This is a very 20th century way of thinking. Even the much-vaunted aims of certain Abstract Expressionists to be seeking God or at least spirituality don’t hold water if that then condemns the legions of religious painters.
The moment you apply paint to any surface you are a painter and what you produce is a painting in spite of the protestations of equally large numbers of ‘critics’ who still believe that reproducing nature is superior to all abstraction.
Perhaps the distinction comes down to intent. Art students at all levels are encouraged these days to explain what they are doing and for art to have meaning. If you can’t explain what you are doing in a written statement then the work decreases in value apparently. As a corollary to this kind of thinking, the more obscure the writing and the art, the more it is worth. I have read some thoroughly pretentious statements of late. If the paintings are a visual form of a written idea then surely they qualify as illustrations under the definition being used.
Ridiculous isn’t it! A recent winner of an art competition in Australia was decided on the basis of the written statement that accompanied the work because the judges couldn’t decide any other sway. All of the work was ‘good’ but it took a combination of paint and wordy description to determine a winner. Perhaps the judges simply felt unqualified to select a winner and needed an extra prop. All hail the well-painted illustration.