It is refreshing to analyze illustrations in lieu of exclusively the written component of a text. I find that often the choices of publishers are overlooked in literary analysis and appreciation. The text is a composite whole of written word, illustration, embellishment, and material. Although through a modern lens, such choices seem of little consequence, they are all interrelated. In illustrated books, the illustration and the written text are involved in an interplay of creation, embellishment, and illumination. The origin of the term illustration as a form of illumination or elucidation holds true.
Today's in-class group exercise was a great way to explore approaches to an illustrated text. A text can never be severed from its context within the world. With each respective text that was presented, context played a role in interpretation. An understanding of the method of illustration, the time period, the publisher, the author, and other cultural events ends up being...
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