The Evolution of Abstract Illustration and the Definition of Applied Illustration
The definition of "illustration" in Ci Hai is: "refers to pictures inserted in books and periodicals. Some are printed in the middle of the text, and some are inserted in the pages to supplement the content of the text or for artistic appreciation. This explanation is mainly aimed at the definition of book illustrations, which is a narrow definition.
With the advent of the information age and the development of modern society, the meaning of modern illustration has changed from a narrow concept (limited to paintings and pictures) to a broad concept. "Illustration" refers to the pictures inserted between words in newspapers, magazines, various publications or children's picture books that we usually read, collectively referred to as "illustration". Illustration, in Latin, means "light up". Reading words and thinking about meaning were originally used to increase the interest given by words in publications and make the words more vivid and vivid in readers' minds. In today's various publications, the importance of illustrations has far exceeded the foil position of "luminous words". It can not only highlight the theme, but also enhance artistic appeal.
Illustration is an art form. As an important visual communication form of modern design, it occupies a specific position in modern design with its intuitive image, true sense of life and beautiful appeal. It is widely used in many fields of modern design, involving cultural activities, social public utilities, commercial activities, film and television culture and so on.
Historical evolution of illustrations
The development of illustration art has a long history. In your eyes and mine, ordinary and simple illustrations have great connotations. From the world's oldest illustration cave mural to the Japanese folk print ukiyo-e painting in the Edo period, all of them show the development of illustration. Illustrations first developed with the changes of newspapers and books in the early19th century. Its real golden age first began in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the illustrations just separated from art works were obviously drawn, and most of the authors engaged in illustrations were professional painters. Later, influenced by the school of abstract expressionism, they turned from concrete to abstract. It was not until the 1970s that illustrations returned to the realistic style.
The earliest illustrations in China appeared in the form of printmaking. With the introduction of Buddhist culture, they used "disguised" illustrations in the scriptures to publicize their teachings. At present, China's earliest prints are recorded in historical materials, namely "Dalagni Curse" published by Tang Suzong. The title page painting of King Kong Prajna Sutra published by Tang Yizong Xian Tong in the 9th year (868) is the exact date. In the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, book illustrations developed greatly. The application scope has expanded to medical books, historical geography books, archaeological catalogue books, daily encyclopedia books and other books, and color overprint illustrations have appeared. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it can be said that the ancient illustration art developed greatly, and there were book engraving industries all over the country. Different regions have formed different styles. The forms of illustrations are: frontispiece drawings, text illustrations, top or bottom drawings, paintings on inner pages or title pages, and cards.
The historical evolution of ancient illustrations in China can be regarded as the development history of printmaking. It is also the history of folk New Year pictures. It's just that folk New Year pictures became commodities independently earlier, which is the predecessor of commercial illustration.
The history of illustration in Europe is similar to that in China, and it was first used in religious books. Later, illustrations were widely used in natural science books, grammar books and collections of classic writers.
With the development of today's society, illustrations are widely used in various fields of society. Illustration art not only broadens our horizons, enriches our thoughts, gives us unlimited imagination and broadens our minds. With the increasing commercialization of art and the emergence of new painting materials and tools, illustration art has entered the era of commercialization. In the era of commodity economy, illustrations play a great role in promoting economic development. The concept of illustration has gone far beyond the scope of traditional laws and regulations. Throughout today's illustration world, painters are no longer limited to a certain style. They often break the way of using only one material in the past, and widely use various means to achieve the expected effect, so that the development of illustration art has gained a broader space and unlimited possibilities. In China, although illustration developed late, it has a long history. After the development of blackboard newspaper, print and poster layout after liberation, and the reference to international popular styles after 1980s, with the popularization of computer technology in the middle and late 1990s, more and more cutting-edge authors who use computers for illustration design emerged.
Illustrations have found a huge living space since the birth of the mother book. With the development of technology and the needs of society, rich carriers are constantly emerging.
Minimalism and abstract color art-graphic style illustration art, or aesthetic things, are mostly related to all aspects of the times. It is biased to roughly attribute the reason of popularity to people's favor for concise and clear expression style in the era of information explosion. In fact, the application of web pages and app screens has definitely promoted the popularization of graphic style illustrations. Visually simple and clean, vector format makes it very small, so plane style is widely used in our lives.
Flattening does not restore the true colors of things, but refines the characteristics of things and expresses things straightforwardly with simple and general shapes. As mentioned above, information explosion is not the main reason for the popularity of flat style, but then again, with more and more picture information received by people's brains every day, it is also an excellent choice to convey information with the most straightforward graphics and bright colors.
Mosaic figure
Most of the shapes extracted from the flat wind illustrations are geometric shapes. Although a single geometric figure is easy to use and control, the effect is relatively rigid and lacks gas field.
In the actual creative process, in order to increase the vividness and interest of the picture, three or four geometric figures are often used for splicing and combining, with one geometric figure as the main constituent element, and the other geometric figures are similar in shape to the main constituent elements. This mosaic combination can not only ensure the primary and secondary order of the picture structure, but also produce ingenious changes in unity.
Bright solid color
Generally speaking, simplified modeling is more suitable to be represented by flat painted solid blocks, so as to keep the balance between modeling and color and create a clean and rigorous visual level. Moreover, because the shape is flat, the color matching is suitable for matching the solid color with strong contrast, so that the bright color contrast supports rapid visual perception, creates visual tension and makes up for the thinness of the shape.
Unified angle
Graphic illustration has been doing subtraction in the modeling of things, and even the pure graphic style belongs to a kind of expression technique that completely abandons the perspective language. Therefore, we should pay attention to the unity of angles when drawing plane illustrations, which is also a practical skill to simplify modeling.
Relatively speaking, an illustration with a flat style has no difficult technical content, and only a few points need to be mastered: covering the whole object and every detail; Pay attention to the hierarchical relationship between blocks, that is, the relationship between front and back occlusion and the relationship between inclusion and inclusion; The edges should be neat and pay attention to details.
Besides, just be patient.