An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation. The word comes from the latin word illustra'tio, illu'stro meaning enlighten, irradiate. Printing is the current process for reproducing illustrations, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for children's books. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information by providing a visual representation of something described in the text. Illustrations can also represent scientific images of flora, medicine or different processes, a biological or chemical processes or technical illustrations to give information on how to use something. Illustrations can be executed in different techniques, like watercolor, gouache, ink, oil, charcoal chalk or woodcut.

Illustrations are often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.

History

Medieval codices' illustrations were called illuminations. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and independently developed a movable type system in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. He also added illustrations to his printed books, usually woodcuts. During the 15th century, books illustrated with woodcut illustrations became available. The main processes used for reproduction of illustrations during the 16th and 17th centuries were engraving and etching. At the end of the 18th century, lithography allowed even better illustrations to be reproduced. The most notable illustrator of this epoch was William Blake who rendered his illustrations in the medium of relief etching.

Early to mid 19th Century

Notable figures of the early century were John Leech, George Cruikshank, Dickens' illustrator Hablot Knight Browne, and, in France, Honore Daumier. The same illustrators contributed to satirical and straight-fiction magazines, but in both cases the demand was for character-drawing that encapsulated or caricatured social types and classes.

The British humorous magazine Punch, which was founded in 1841 riding on the earlier success of Cruikshank's Comic Almanac (1827–1840), employed an uninterrupted run of high-quality comic illustrators, including Sir John Tenniel, the Dalziel Brothers, and Georges du Maurier, into the 20th century. It chronicles the gradual shift in popular illustration from reliance on caricature to sophisticated topical observations. These artists all trained as conventional fine-artists, but achieved their reputations primarily as illustrators. Punch and similar magazines such as the Parisian Le Voleur realised that good illustrations sold as many copies as written content.

Golden age of illustration

The American "golden age of illustration" lasted from the 1880s until shortly after World War I (although the active career of several later "golden age" illustrators went on for another few decades). As in Europe a few decades earlier, newspapers, mass market magazines, and illustrated books had become the dominant media of public consumption. Improvements in printing technology freed illustrators to experiment with color and new rendering techniques. A small group of illustrators in this time became rich and famous. The imagery they created was a portrait of American aspirations of the time.

Technical illustration is the use of illustration to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be component technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustration in general aim "to generate expressive images that effectively convey certain information via the visual channel to the human observer". Nowadays, many illustration programs are used to create technical illustrations due the need for detailed imaging and repeated updating. Besides the commonplace 2-D Adobe Illustrator, there are many 3-D computer graphics software that are often utilized to create illustration for textbooks, especially scientific ones. Technical illustrations generally describe and explain the subjects to a nontechnical audience. Therefore the visual image should be accurate in terms of dimensions and proportions, and should provide "an overall impression of what an object is or does, to enhance the viewer's interest and understanding".

Illustration art

Today, there is a growing interest in collecting and admiring original artwork that was used as illustrations in books, magazines, posters, blogs, etc. Various museum exhibitions, magazines and art galleries have devoted space to the illustrators of the In the visual art world, illustrators have sometimes been considered less important in comparison with fine artists and graphic designers, the term "illustrative" sometimes being used as a negative critique. But, possibly in part due to the growth of video game and graphic novel industries, as well as a recent swing in value towards illustration in magazines and other publications over photography, illustration is becoming a valued, popular, and profitable art form that can acquire a wider market than the other two, such as in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States. Original illustration art from the best-known magazine illustrators is known to bring prices into the hundreds of thousands of US Dollars at auction. Norman Rockwell's work transcends even these high standards, with his painting "Breaking Home Ties" selling in a 2006 Sotheby's auction for USD15.4 million. The best-known pinup artists such as Gil Elvgren and Alberto Vargas also bring tremendous prices at auction, with a number of Elvgren's works having sold for over USD100,000 in Heritage Auctions.

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Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, but also can be seen in Europe. They can be found in deep forests near calm ponds and small rivers. The family contains 116 species and is divided into three subfamilies and 19 genera. All kingfishers have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails. Most species have bright plumage with only small differences between the sexes. Most species are tropical in distribution, and a slight majority are found only in forests.

They consume a wide range of prey usually caught by swooping down from a perch. While kingfishers are usually thought to live near rivers and eat fish, many species live away from water and eat small invertebrates. Like other members of their order, they nest in cavities, usually tunnels dug into the natural or artificial banks in the ground. Some kingfishers nest in arboreal termite nests. A few species, principally insular forms, are threatened with extinction. In Britain, the word "kingfisher" normally refers to the common kingfisher.

Relationship with humans

Kingfishers are generally shy birds, but in spite of this, they feature heavily in human culture, generally due to the large head supporting its powerful mouth, their bright plumage, or some species' interesting behavior.

For the Dusun people of Borneo, the Oriental dwarf kingfisher is considered a bad omen, and warriors who see one on the way to battle should return home. Another Bornean tribe considers the banded kingfisher an omen bird, albeit generally a good omen.

The sacred kingfisher, along with other Pacific kingfishers, was venerated by the Polynesians, who believed it had control over the seas and waves.

Modern taxonomy also refers to the winds and sea in naming kingfishers after a classical Greek myth. The first pair of the mythical-bird Halcyon (kingfishers) were created from a marriage of Alcyone and Ceyx. As gods, they lived the sacrilege of referring to themselves as Zeus and Hera. They died for this, but the other gods, in an act of compassion, made them into birds, thus restoring them to their original seaside habitat. In addition, special "halcyon days" were granted. These are the seven days on either side of the winter solstice when storms shall never again occur for them. The Halcyon birds' "days" were for caring for the winter-hatched clutch (or brood), but the phrase "Halcyon days" also refers specifically to an idyllic time in the past, or in general to a peaceful time. In another version, a woman named Alcyone was cast into the waves by her father for her promiscuity and was turned into a kingfisher.

Various kinds of kingfishers and human cultural artifacts are named after the couple, in reference to this metamorphosis myth:

The genus Ceyx (within the river kingfishers family) is named after him.

The kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae (tree kingfishers) is named after his wife, as is the genus Halcyon.

The belted kingfisher's specific name (Megaceryle alcyon) also references her name.

Not all the kingfishers are named in this way. The etymology of kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is obscure; the term comes from "king's fisher", but why that name was applied is not known.