Book graphics definition. Characteristics of the concept of "book graphics

book graphics- one of the types of graphic art. This includes, in particular, book illustrations, vignettes, screensavers, drop caps, covers, dust jackets, etc. The history of drawing has been largely associated with the handwritten book since antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the development of engraving and lithography has been connected with the printed book. IN ancient world a font appeared, also related to graphics, since the letter itself is a graphic sign. A distinctive feature of book graphics. Cover (hardback) as artistic solution book covers. The main purpose of the title page. Design and illustration of fiction. Principles of development of chiaroscuro, volumes and perspectives.

The artist, by means of fine arts, embodies the ideological and artistic design, creates the artistic and decorative appearance of the book. He must not only know the fonts and be able to use them, but also be able to modify them, create new ones that correspond to his idea, the style of the book, the nature of the literary work. When working on an illustration, the artist must clearly imagine how it will fit with the set strip on the next page, what the spread of the book will be like.

Currently, there are various types of literature and various types of books, the purpose and circle of readers of which determines the circulation, format, degree and nature of the design. Fiction is the largest section in book publishing, it is closely related to the visual arts, so it is well designed and illustrated. Books for children are famous for their rich design, large formats, and clear, easy-to-read type. Political literature, as a rule, is designed in simple and strict colors, where photographs often act as illustrative material. Scientific and technical literature (textbooks and dictionaries) is framed modestly, if not sparingly. Special editions make up a special group, which is called bibliophilic. Design and illustration of such publications is entrusted to the best masters. Rare and expensive materials are used that are not used for mass publications.

The book consists of the following elements:

• Cover- an artistic solution for covering a book in which a book block is enclosed. The cover solution should be conditionally decorative, clear, give the book a beautiful appearance, but at the same time give an accurate description of the book, reveal its main meaning, style and figurative structure. The cover should have font elements that reflect the main heading data.
• Title page- the right half of the first spread of the book. The title contains more complex font elements that explain the heading and publishing data. If an illustration is placed on the left page of the first spread, or a portrait of the author is printed, such a page is called a frontispiece. The drawing on the title is used relatively rarely and has more decorative value.
• Schmuttituli- separate sheets opening parts, sections of the book. A heading and a simple ornamental motif or drawing are placed on the half-title.
• dust jacket- artistically designed paper cover of the book on top of the cover. the main task- draw attention to the book and protect the cover from damage for a while.
• Illustrations are drawings that figuratively reveal literary text subject to the content and style of a literary work.
• Screensaver- a small composition of an ornamental nature or in the form of a picture that opens some section of the text.
• ending- a small drawing or ornamental motif that completes the last page of a section or entire book.
• Initial- the initial letter in the text of the book created by the artist.
• Descent or runway- the first page of the text of the book, usually decorated with a headband or initial letter.

In Russia, the first handwritten books with images appeared in the 10th century. The invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century contributed to the wide dissemination of the book.

A feature of modern book graphics is its connection with printing, its dependence on the level and culture of work in printing production. The tasks of book graphics are divided into:

• book design - appearance, hand-drawn font elements, compositional construction text typing, etc.
• illustrating a book - figurative disclosure of a literary text with the help of drawings

In graphics, line and tone illustrations are common. There are illustrations executed in a volumetric plan and a conditionally planar interpretation. There are also their own principles for the development of chiaroscuro, volumes and perspectives, their own scales and methods of composition. That is why ordinary easel graphic works, even if they are reduced to book formats, cannot serve as illustrations and will only be reproductions pasted into a book.

It is necessary to emphasize the particularly prominent role of woodcut engraving in the art of the book.

The book is one of the most important spiritual needs of modern man, it organically combines the work of both the artist and publishing workers and printers. Only the harmonious work of these people creates a full-fledged book.

Bilibinsky style

I. Ya. Bilibin (1876-1942) can rightly be called the greatest artists - illustrators, he developed a system of graphic techniques that made it possible to combine illustrations and design in one style, subordinating them to the plane book page. Character traits Bilibino style: the beauty of the patterned pattern, the exquisite decorativeness of color combinations, the subtle visual embodiment of the world, the combination of bright fabulousness with a sense of folk humor, etc.

Moritz von Schwyz (1804-1871), famous German painter and illustrator. He created the so-called "monumental illustrations" based on fairy tales. These are large art canvases that can be seen in the halls of the Munich Alte Pinakothek.

The graphic style of the famous french artist and the sculptor Gustave Dore (1833-1883), combining the lightness of a stroke with a tense line, the ability to enrich the essence of an illustrated work with countless original finds, found an enthusiastic response from the French public. Dore is one of the most famous and prolific illustrators of the second half of the 19th century.

Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1848-1926) is one of the first Russian artists who pushed the boundaries of the usual genres and showed fairy world, illuminated by the poetic imagination of the people. Vasnetsov, one of the first Russian artists, turned to recreating the images of folk tales and epics in painting.

Moritz von Schwyz

Gustave Dore

Viktor Mikhailovich
Vasnetsov

The list of remarkable Soviet illustrators of children's books is huge, this includes: Vasnetsov Yu.A., Suteev V.G., Charushin E.I., Dekhterev B.A., Ustinov N.A., Chizhikov V.A., Vladimirsky L. .V and many others.

Distinctive featurebookstore graphics is its close relationship with printing, its dependence on the level and culture of work of printing production.

Based on the main tasks of book graphics, it is divided intodecor Andillustration books. The design of the book includes its decorative outfit, its decoration, drawn font elements, the compositional construction of text types, etc. (cover, title page, title page, etc.) Illustrating the book (from lat. illustration - a visual image, description) solves the problem of figurative disclosure of a literary text with the help of drawings (illustrations) different kind). Immediately make a reservation that such a division is very conditional. In a good book, it is impossible to trace where the design ends and the illustration begins. We know examples of convincing solutions ideological concept and building books only by means of design. Quite often in the design elements (on the cover, title page, dust jacket, etc.) we find a drawing that contributes to the disclosure of a literary text. Real illustrations in the book, with all the depth of the ideological, figurative solution, in turn, do not lose their decorative effect, do not cease to be elements of the book's decoration, in perfect harmony with the set, paper - with the nature of the book.

I. Bilibin. Cover of the book by J. Kennan "Siberia and exile". 1906.

Super cover

The complex organism of a book consists of manyelements . Let's get acquainted with those elements in the solution of which the artist plays a leading role.

Cover (hardback) - an artistic solution for the cover of the book, in which the book block is enclosed. The cover solution, in which, as a rule, color is used, should be conditionally decorative, clear, give the book a beautiful appearance, but at the same time give an accurate description of the book, reveal its main meaning, style and figurative structure. The cover should have font elements that reflect the main heading data (author and title of the book).

Title example.

V. Favorsky. Reversal title. 1931.

dust jacket ( from lat. super - above, above) is called the artistically designed paper cover of the book on top of the cover. The main task of the dust jacket is to draw attention to the book and to protect the cover from damage for some time.

Title or title page – the right half of the first spread of the book. The title contains more complex font elements that explain the heading and publishing data. Sometimes this data is extended to the adjacent, left page - the countertitle. This decision is called a reversal title. If an illustration is placed on the left page of the first spread or a portrait of the author is printed, such a page is calledfrontispiece . The drawing on the title is used relatively rarely and has more decorative value.Shmuttitulami Separate sheets are called, which open parts, sections of the book. A heading and a simple ornamental motif or drawing are placed on it.

N.I. Piskarev. Shmuttitul to the book by A.V. Lunacharsky "The Liberated Don Quixote". 1922.

Illustrations - these are drawings that figuratively reveal a literary text, subordinate to the content and style of a literary work, at the same time decorating a book and enriching its decorative structure. The tasks of illustration are also partially solved in the drawings on the cover, title, intros, and endings.

Screensaver - a small composition of an ornamental nature or in the form of a drawing, opening some section of the text (the beginning of a book, part, chapter). The splash screen is closely related to the typesetting strip and never turns into an illustration.

ending - a small drawing or ornamental motif that completes the last page of a section or entire book.

Initial (from lat. initialis - initial) - the initial letter of any section in the text of the book, manuscript, created by the artist. In everyday life, the old Russian name of the initial has been preserved - a letter.

The first page of the text of the book, usually decorated with a headband or initial letter, is called a descent ordownhill strip.

Gerasimenko-Zhiznevsky. Illustration for V. Bykov's story "The Sign of Trouble". Lithography.

This is a short list of the elements of the book. In addition to the obligatory cover and title for each book, all other elements are introduced to the extent required by the purpose, purpose of the book, its volume, circulation and artist's intention.

The creative process in the art of book graphics is complex. The artist must capture the spirit of a literary work, its style and reflect it in his work. In front of himthe task is - to reveal the ideological and artistic content of the work by means of fine arts, to preserve the unity of the figurative and decorative structure of the book with the spirit of the work, the style of the writer and to give in his individual pictorial solution contemporary assessment literary work.

I. Bilibin. Screensaver to the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Two Crows". 1910.

I. Bilibin. Ending to A.S. Pushkin's poem "Two Crows". 1910.

An important side of the art of book graphics is the obligatory consideration of the features of the printing structure of the book, its peculiar nature as a cultural value and as a thing. The artist of the book must work in a strictly defined, predetermined size (format). There are certain most rational standard formats. The artist cannot arbitrarily change the proportions of the sheet, which creates certain difficulties and features in the composition. Based on the mandatory format, the artist determines the volume of the book, the number and type of pictorial elements, their distribution throughout the book, it must be clear to him what font the text will be typed in, what are the proportions of the typesetting strip and page margins. All the pictorial elements in the book are very closely related to type. The creation of fonts is ancient and high art. Many generations of artists have worked to create fonts with a beautiful design, perfect proportions, fonts that are clear, readable and varied in style. Only by having a variety of beautiful fonts, you can successfully solve the problems of book design. Type elements of the cover, titles, dust jackets, half-titles, separate headings, as a rule, are drawn by artists. It is necessary to achieve their harmonious combination with typesetting fonts, with graphic elements. The book artist must not only know fonts and be able to use them, but also be able to modify existing fonts and create new ones that correspond to his idea, the style of the book, the nature of the literary work. Constantly caring about the printing and artistic unity of the book, the artist must know at least the basics of printing production and be in close contact with publishing workers preparing the book for publication, and printers. All the pictorial elements of the book should be harmoniously connected with the plane of the paper, with the strip of typesetting. When working, for example, on an illustration, the artist must clearly imagine how it will be combined with the set strip on the next page, what the spread of the book will be like.

I. Bilibin. Initial. 1921.

Modern book graphics are characterized by a variety of searches, bold experiments by many masters, different in their creative appearance.

A separate line in the art of book graphics should be consideredmagazine and newspaper graphics. Specificity periodicals sets its own, special tasks for magazine and newspaper graphics. If a book serves a person for a long time and is devoted to a specific topic, one branch of knowledge, then rapidly changing (periodical) magazines and newspapers contain the most diverse material, reflecting the tasks of the day, covering the most diverse areas of human activity. The newspaper serves one day, it is read quickly, and all its visual elements should immediately fit into the mind, and therefore, be simple, beautiful and clear, convenient for quick perception. Line drawings are best perceived in newspapers. The journal publishes material of a review, generalizing nature. Quite often the magazine is addressed to a certain circle of readers (an agricultural magazine, a health magazine, a fashion magazine, etc.). But the magazine is also characterized by a variety of material and a short service life. The formats of magazines and the layout of the text in them differ significantly from those in books. The magazine drawing should be expressive and catchy, in good harmony with headings and typesetting. Very good for a sketchbook. They are favorably distinguished from photographs by the artist's ability to display the most typical, to generalize a phenomenon, to create an image, a character; besides, the drawings fit much better with the set than the photographs. Today, unfortunately, our newspapers and magazines often abound with stamps that make it easy and quick to use computer technology.

V. Zamirailo. Descent lane. 1921.

Caricature (from it. caricatura< caricare - load, exaggerate) - special satirical genre newspaper and magazine graphics. The caricature deliberately emphasizes, exaggerates character traits and features of a person or event in order to fulfill the task of exposing, ridiculing, influencing. Independent (easel) caricature is relatively rare - it is almost always associated with a newspaper, magazine, book, poster. In most cases, the cartoon is accompanied by text. Thanks to the printed editions, the caricature spreads very widely.

There are special comic magazines, collections of cartoons, etc. Not every artist can work in this genre. A caricaturist must have a special gift, a sharp eye, notice the most characteristic, the ability to exaggerate, while remaining a deep and subtle artist, without falling into empty superficial scoffing and vulgarity. In the history of art, many such “accurate” masters are known, for example, O. Daumier, H. Bidstrup, J. Effel, V. Serov, D. Moor, Kukryniksy and many others.

It is now surrounded by such zealous public attention, such diligent care and guardianship, that it would be at least strange to talk about some kind of stagnation of this genre, and even more so about a serious threat that jeopardizes the very possibility of its existence.
But there are grounds for concern about the fate of book graphics.

Design tasks are increasingly subject to machinery, dull standard monotony. Illustrations are sometimes considered something obsolete and archaic, many publishing houses openly seek to get rid of them, as from an uninvited guest.

The unheard-of increase in the number of books being published, the need for mass circulation - phenomena in themselves are extremely encouraging. But they quickly led to impoverishment artistic beginning in publishing practice. The book becomes a "production", which inevitably entails standardization, the dull impersonality of a huge number of publications.

Especially sharply, almost totally, such sad qualities are observed in the activities of the publishing houses of the capitalist world. Western scholars often and rightly write that in the countries of capitalism a book becomes not only a “thing among things”, but also an absolutely insignificant detail of everyday life. The original artistic solution turned out to be redundant there, not only for cheap bestsellers and pocketbooks. And in most "amateur" publications, the design task is reduced to creating an informational cover and advertising super, which is thrown away after purchase. Genuine adult fiction publications are becoming increasingly rare in the West.

The USSR was perhaps the only country in the world where illustrated editions of classical and modern prose, poetry and drama are very numerous. Enormous work is being done to combine mass publications with their artistic originality. Needless to say, we also publish a lot of works of fiction designed in a boring, standard or simply tasteless way. But such books do not appear because the reader is indifferent to artistic composition books, and in some cases because of bad work publishing houses or individual designers, in a word, for incidental rather than fundamental reasons.

This problem is fixable. Where else is worse. Behind last years we began to appear publications demonstratively non-artistic, engineering, or something, persuasion. Such publications have supporters among typographers, theorists, and book design specialists.
It is very appropriate in this connection to reflect again and again on the very simple question: what is a book and what is its design?

Of course, every book is first and foremost literature. But she is also a spectacle. Visual impressions accompany the process of perceiving a book throughout its entire length. Ancestor modern forms writing was pictography, pictorial speech, a series of pictorial compositions. Later writing turned into combinations of abstract signs-symbols, almost devoid of the ability to have a figurative impact (although the manner of drawing or font reproduction of letters and words to some extent possesses it). But if the original unity of word and image broke up, then the need for visual enrichment of the text, images, visible along with speculative ones, never disappeared.

Book, the most beautiful flower human culture, combines many creativity. Text is her soul. But there is also the body of the book, the matter of its visual embodiment. It has its own architecture: stereometry of volume and format, binding fronts, title windows, enfilades of pages. She has her own colors and colors, even if most often within the black and white range - the possibilities of shades and combinations are endless here. She has the music of an internal rhythm - in the ratio of typesetting and white fields, in stopping the running of lines before a paragraph, in the pauses between chapters. In a word, the embodiment of a literary work in space (and this is a book), at least by printing means, without specific visual additions, is a subtle, complex art, and only a tiny fraction of its features and features were mentioned here.

So, any non-illustrated edition of fiction, in addition to tasks of a purely technical nature, must also solve problems of an emotional and poetic nature. They are unique in each individual case, they require the soul, hands and eyes of the artist. There are publications made "engineering", almost irrespective of the content. And there are books made by real bookmakers. design, who strive to create visual compositions that correspond to the meaning, mood, color of the novel or poem. The first editions differ from the second editions approximately in the same way as the faceless “average soul” differs from a living person with his special, unique individuality and endless richness of life colors.
The book is being read. But they still look at the book.

It is watched not only when they are held in their hands and flipping through the pages. The spine of a book purchased for a home library falls into the field of view of its owners every day. The cover of a book is involuntarily noticed if it lies on the table; its interior decoration flashes even before a distracted gaze, when, open, a book is placed somewhere in the room.
The book is part of the modern interior, is a permanent and obligatory element those visual impressions that a person of the present era receives every day.
It is clear to everyone that the transformation of a book into an everyday object of our life is a phenomenon social order. How much is behind this transformation, how eloquent and significant it is in its own way - there is no need to talk about this in detail.
But one side of the matter is somehow ignored. Few people are aware that not only reading books, but also the emotional impact that it makes on a person - day after day - receives a completely definite social meaning! - their appearance, their decorative expressiveness.

Meanwhile, this impact is undeniable. How else?! The nature and features of what is seen everyday to a certain extent influence the course of people's thoughts, shades of moods. And as soon as books have entered the everyday life of millions, their visible forms and colors, so to speak, the expression of their faces, become, albeit a small, albeit modest, but invariable part of the atmosphere of our life, and therefore the feeling of it. One of the essential features modern book lies in the fact that it has taken its place in a number of mass-produced objects material culture. But what is it, this place?
This is where the concepts of industrial-standard and artistic-unique principles of printing come into conflict. The book, animated and humanized by the talent of the artist, is repelled with mechanical paws by the book-robot, the book-standard.

Standardization in general is now attacking the individual. Similar houses and even cities are being built; the twin resemblance of apartments in new buildings has long been the property of sad humor; thousands and thousands of details of everyday life are invariably repeated everywhere.
When a person creates his own house, it is more and more difficult to reveal and assert his individuality, his tastes. But the creation of one's own small world is one of the most widespread forms of human creativity; when it fades, the whole civilization as a whole becomes impoverished. And the craving for the unique, special, individual, which has increased so sharply over the past decades, is understandable.

Who, if not a book, a thousand-faced and constantly renewing brainchild of human culture, its highest and brightest traditions, can help in this dramatic struggle for the preservation of the individual, for the possibility of its self-disclosure, self-affirmation? Not only by its content, but as an object, as a spectacle, a book is able to bring into any home a living reflection of the uniquely peculiar searches of human thought. Each edition can look (I emphasize - look) as an island of human creativity in the flooded sea of ​​everyday life. And the collection of books in the house is already a whole archipelago, each time with an original, bizarre outline of the coast, because the selection is made according to one's own taste and bears the stamp of individuality.
I recall the publications issued in the very first post-revolutionary years “ People's Library". They were printed almost on wrapping paper, technically primitive, but literally all issues of this cheap series were superbly designed by the largest masters of book graphics of those years (including B. Kustodiev, A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, D. Mitrokhin, B Konashevich, S. Chekhonin, N. Kupreyanov, V. Lebedev). In a special document, the Literary and Publishing Department of the People's Commissariat of Education demanded that special attention be paid to "the appearance of these publications."

Of course, this is not accidental. The revolution strove to make every book a holiday, a joyful celebration of the free creative forces of man. Without an artist, this holiday seemed simply unthinkable. In the days of starvation rations, neither the illustrations nor the ornamental and decorative outfit of books seemed “excessive” to anyone. It seemed to the October generation that book graphics (real, created by the living hand of the artist) are among the primary elements of culture, the possession of which is one of the most important tasks of a new, democratic society.

Such ideas, which have absorbed best features spiritual experience of centuries, formed the basis of the long-term tradition of the Soviet book business.
This is natural and significant in various respects. The expansion of the readership that is striking in its scale, the need for a colossal increase in printing products long years did not at all lead to the impoverishment of figurative principles, the visual beauty of books.
Simplicity and modesty have become commonplace for our books, but even the most severe limits of printing have always provided for the work of an artist - the creator of the design. To refuse it means to mortally offend the reader, to retreat from those concepts of the book and its cultural purpose and life vocation, which were firmly and firmly established in our country back in the revolutionary years.

And if now, when our current book publishing capabilities are simply incomparable with the previous ones, there has been some bias towards “artistry”, then, obviously, this is a temporary and unstable matter.
Printing production is improving year by year, but the main elements of the artistic expressiveness of book publications remain unchanged and traditional.

It is important to make sure how viable the age-old tradition is, whether it has lost its significance in our times.
It is necessary to speak in the most detailed and detailed way about the problems of illustration for fiction. It is in connection with them that modern controversy takes on the most acute forms. After all, all other details of the pictorial attire of books with a certain degree of assumption can still be considered varieties of artistic and printing design of the publication, so to speak, typographic aesthetics. Illustration - there's nothing you can do about it - completely goes beyond it, is a completely autonomous art form and only mates with a book edition with the help of some special "docking", to use the now popular term.

Is it fair to say that in the modern world illustration dies a natural death, having outlived its time and become unnecessary archaism? Claim that great masters The visual arts of the West are not interested in illustration, which would mean contradicting obvious facts. Suffice it to recall that over the past half century, such outstanding masters, as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Aristide Mayol, Georges Rouault, Raoul Dufy, Frans Masereel, Hans Ernie, Georg Gross, Ernst Barlach, Oscar Kokoschka, Paul Klee, Josef Hegenbart, José Venturelli, Renato Guttuso, Werner Klemke, Josef Lada. The work in the book was not a random episode for these artists: Picasso, for example, designed more than seventy books; Matisse, the creator of new types of art and book publications, only during 1944-1952. completed illustration and design compositions for eleven books, etc. None of them considered illustration and design art to be some kind of second-rate genre. So, Matisse (in the article "Kai I made my books") said: "I do not see any difference between the creation of a book and the creation of a picture"1. Dozens of statements of this kind could be cited.
In that case, why is the illustrated book for adults now experiencing a decline in the West? ?
Solely for non-artistic reasons. It is unprofitable for the market; illustrations are not included in the modern selling standard of the book.
But there is an argument against illustrations, which looks quite theoretical, as a generalization of some features of the spiritual life of modern times. Opponents of illustrating books argue that the people of our day receive basic information about the world from radio, television, and the periodical press. Hence the defining features of the purpose of the book in the conditions of the current civilization: communication with the spheres of abstract thinking and associative perception.

Let us add to this that sometimes even the most talented, highly authoritative writers, believing that the artist of a book should not directly come into contact with its content, treat illustration nihilistically. Let us recall the well-known judgments of Yu. N. Tynyanov, expressed by him in the twenties in the book “Archaists and Innovators”, or the recent statement of the smart and subtle prose writer V. A. Kaverin on the pages of the “Literary Gazette”:
". .. there is an abyss between verbal and pictorial means of depiction. Can it be overcome? Yes, but in the only case: the artist must completely “free himself” from the work, giving his strength to the creation of the book as an artistic whole. .. An explanatory drawing most often does not explain anything, but only speaks about the artist's attitude to the work. Isn't the way more correct the artist is coming"decorating" the book? .. a lot remains for the artist: the harmonious combination of drawing with text, and font, and format - everything that makes a book an object of art.
In these words - a whole program of attitude to the art of illustration. In my opinion, the program is wrong. But you can’t brush it off, just like trying to oppose the demands modern civilization centuries-old tradition of illustrating books. That is why it is necessary to be clear about the initial principles and features of the art of illustration.

It is often referred to as something secondary, emitting reflected light. It would seem that this is quite logical and justified. In fact, the illustrator recreates the characters already depicted in the book, tells about the events that are captured in the text - in a word, the artist is here goes the way, which is laid by the writer. Therefore, sometimes an illustrator is compared to a translator.
But the similarity between literary translation and artistic illustration is very relative.

A foreign poet or prose writer and his translator work within the boundaries of the same kind of art, they have a single material for constructing images: the word. The best, most perfect translation is only a version of the original that sounded in another language, and not a completely new work of art.
And the illustrator must show the images, landscapes, scenes, interiors, which are described in the book. He creates visual parallels to verbal images (V. A. Kaverin is absolutely right about this). And even if only because of such relationships between the text and the graphic works created based on it, any illustration inevitably turns out to be a completely new and independently existing creation.
No one demands from the translator some kind of his own, purely personal interpretation of a foreign text (unless, of course, we talk about “free translations” - this is a special genre of literature). And the very nature of his art obliges the illustrator to find an independent interpretation of the literary original. Without this, it is simply unthinkable to create drawings.

By creating a pictorial parallel to the literary source, the artist, in essence, gives it a new life. He not only endows with a visible form the appearances of the characters, the setting of the action, the turn of events, but also embodies his own idea of ​​them, which always bears the stamp of the time of creation and creative personality illustration author.
Very often, in accordance with the peculiarities of his art, the illustrator allows such a concentration of images within the boundaries of a single time and place of action, which, perhaps, is not in a certain passage of the text, but which corresponds to the spirit and character of the life depicted by the writer. At the same time, of course, in a good illustration there is no mechanical connection different events or different turns in the evolution of characters. Each drawing in the book should have the credibility of a story about a unique, specific moment. Therefore, the illustrator has to not only retell the writer, but, as if following him, directly and directly show reality.

From this point of view, the tasks facing the illustrator are absolutely no different from the tasks solved by the artist of any other genre of fine art. The need to follow the writer in choosing and covering events and the lives of the characters determines rather than the limitations, but the originality and additional difficulties in the work of the illustrator.
The artist selects from old and new books those that can not only be read, but also "seen". Of course, another thing is no less important: the value, the living and enduring significance of a literary monument for the present (or the readership's interest in a new book). It is rightly said that books, like people, have their own destiny. Each era perceives them in its own way, and this perception is captured by the illustrator.

Sometimes, however, it happened that the pictorial portraits of the heroes of the books appeared and acquired the rights of citizenship almost simultaneously or even literally at the same time as the literary source itself. So, for example, the brave soldier Schweik of the writer Yaroslav Hasek and Schweik of the artist Josef Lada saw the light together and gained almost equal fame. When in 1922 the publishing house of F. Sauer first released separate edition“The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik during the World War”, then on the cover of the book flaunted that very good-naturedly smiling short fat man in a confederate shirt, slyly pretending to be a simpleton, who soon became known to millions of readers. A contemporary and friend of the writer, Lada relied in his work not only on literary prototype, but also on the same real life observations as Hasek. The artist had every reason to say: "I am sure that I painted the portraits of all the main characters according to the ideas that Yaroslav Gashek probably had when he wrote his novel."
The sewers of Hasek and Lada grew together so firmly that when in subsequent years this character appeared in new illustrations, on movie screens, on drama and even on opera stages, then no matter what situations and mise-en-scenes the directors and artists invented, the mask, the appearance of Schweik remained basically unchanged: no one tried to move away from the portrait created by Josef Lada.

Otherwise, the viewer simply did not recognize and would not accept Schweik.
Just like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, depicted by Gustave Dore, have acquired a very definite physical reality in the minds of people. Created by the artist, they very soon became common property, folk heroes.
But a little later, Honore Daumier turns to the images of Cervantes' novel. The physical appearance of the central characters in Daumier, in general, is the same as in Doré - here the priority of the famous illustrator is beyond doubt. But only. A large series of paintings, watercolors, drawings by Daumier on the themes of "Don Quixote" are not traditional illustrations, like Dore's. Daumier recreates only the two central characters of the narrative - Don Quixote and Sancho Panza - together or separately, most often without any detailed plot story. But what a wealth of feeling and thought these Daumier's works possess! How close they are to the core ideas of Cervantes' novel and at the same time how consonant with the dreams, ideas of beauty and nobleness, sad reflections of the best of the artist's contemporaries! How subtly and passionately they narrate the tragic complexities of life in the 19th century!

Here are travelers, making up a strange, bizarre couple, traveling through a deserted, mountainous area. They are alone in this inhospitable, orphan world, their path is difficult, the struggle is hard, the future is unknown. In another of the things, Sancho Panza is shown not as a simple-hearted, crafty lover of life, as he is usually portrayed, but as a man difficult fate immersed in anxious, restless reflections. Strong, thickset, like a mighty tree, under whose canopy he sits, Sancho Panza here is a living embodiment of the earthly principle, worldly wisdom, simple and kind, and therefore knowing a painfully difficult fate. Perhaps only he is limited, powerless, he lacks a flight of dreams, a winged fantasy, a prophetic impulse that does not take into account the ordinary - “prudence”, - in a word, qualities that Don Quixote possesses in such a generous abundance, whose thin, lanky figure looms on the horizon.
And in another thing of the cycle, the heroes, as it were, change places; in the distance, shrouded in a sultry haze, one can see the figure of the fat man Sancho Panza on a donkey, and in the foreground - Don Quixote proudly sitting on Rocinante with a spear and a shield in his hands. He is majestic in his own way, this knight without fear and reproach, bravely riding towards new exploits. But the artist not only depicts with a clear share of bitter irony the trembling legs, the protruding bones of a barely trudging horse, and the weakness of the hero himself, thin and emaciated. Don Quixote here seems to be something almost unreal, a mirage, a vision. The sublime, but utopian illusions of the knight seem to have turned him into a ghost, living in some other dimension than everything ordinary, earthly. . . All this, of course, is very "Cervantesian". And at the same time, such a turn of the image is directly connected with the sad realization of the incompatibility of noble impulses, genuine humanity with cynicism and dirty prose of the bourgeois world of the 19th century.

It is curious that a whole century later, in the 1955 drawing Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Pablo Picasso clearly echoes Daumier. Only here the tragic grotesque has even greater bitterness. Picasso's Don Quixote (both in this drawing and in other one-dark ones) is only a ghostly, absurd shadow of distant hopes and illusions that have become dust.
. . . It happens (albeit relatively rarely) that the role of illustration in a poem, novel, story is "entrusted" to the artist's work, created much earlier than the given literary text. So, Goethe placed on the cover of the first edition of his "Faust" in 1790 (which contained only fragments of the first part of the still unfinished poem) an engraving by I. X. Lips from the famous etching by Rembrandt in 1652, depicting a medieval scholar in his office (since then this the etching is traditionally called "Faust", although there is no evidence that Rembrandt relied on the old legend of the alchemist miracle worker in his work).

Finally, the history of art also knows such illustrations that, already at their birth, were incomparably more significant than the works that they accompanied. Who, for example, now remembers and rereads French writers the forties of the last century, the authors of the so-called "physiological essays" - Clair, Alois, Philippon and others? But the illustrations for their books, created by Honore Daumier, will live for centuries.
However, these are all exceptions. They are interesting and remarkable, they must be reckoned with, but it is undeniable that most often characteristic principles relationships between literary works and illustrations for them are formed in a different way. As a rule, the original and primary significance of the writer's work, created in the distant past or in very recent times, is preserved in all respects. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, the main task of the artist is not to somehow “deepen” or “complete” the work of the writer, but to possible completeness and faithfully comprehend the meaning, spirit, images of the book and give them a convincing graphic interpretation.

Strictly observing the historical authenticity of the image, illustrators are often primarily interested not so much in the specific development of the plot, its details, turns, etc., but in the generalized embodiment of human qualities concentrated in individual images. The interpretation and evaluation of these qualities are usually associated with contemporary artist ideals, aesthetic and social views.
So, one of the illustrations by V. A. Favorsky to "Little Tragedies" by A. S. Pushkin - "Mozart and Salieri" - is built on a contrasting comparison of two deeply various characters. Favorsky clearly departed from the traditional image of Mozart as a light-winged merry fellow, a happy favorite of the muses, who with careless generosity endows everyone around him with the brilliance of his solar genius. The artist showed Mozart in deep, sad meditation, concentrated, self-immersed. He forgot himself, and the sounds of the "Requiem", solemn and enlightened, are born in the depths of his soul.
Salieri is shocked. He is mortally wounded not only by envy of Mozart's virtuosity, the magical beauty of his composition, but above all by this radiant purity of his inner world. Salieri, captivated by vain passions, a greedy play of selfish hopes and desires, this music of a pure heart, infinitely beautiful in its penetrating humanity, is inaccessible.

It seems that the "Mozartian principle" understood in this way, the assertion of beauty as a victory of justice, spiritual purity, bright human impulses, is equally inherent in Pushkin's poetry and the moral ideals of our contemporaries. Wonderful artist, the largest of the Soviet graphic illustrators, with a wise maturity of creative insight, found here a living connection of times, an internal unity of the images of the genius of Russian classical poetry and ideas about beautiful person our days.

The illustrator of the classics always has to look for some clues in his personal, living experience. Without them, no bookish knowledge can come to life; without them, even the most powerful and creative fantasy will not be able to break through the road to the truthful. artistic image. Not only the classics of the 19th century, but even Homer cannot be illustrated if you do not understand what is valuable and dear to us, people of the 20th century. Indeed, objectively the most important and essential in classical literary works is the enduring, eternally beautiful, always alive and modern. What is more significant in Othello than his passionate and truthful, immensely trusting nature? In Natasha Rostova - her pure, youthful charm? In Fadeev's Levinson - the deepest, embedded in the flesh and blood of democracy, devotion to the revolution?

If an artist is able to show all this, which is completely understandable for us, alive and today, he will successfully solve his main task. If he fails, neither the ideal accuracy of reproduction of the historical situation, nor the costumes in the style of the era, nor the most virtuoso mastery of drawing or watercolor will save the matter. In the art of illustration, the truth of history is revealed primarily through the truth of the characters. At the same time, it goes without saying that the illustrator cannot show passion "in general", youth "as such", will "in its purest expression". Concrete, always unique outlines of images are clearly outlined in a literary work, and the illustrator is obliged to strictly adhere to these outlines. But the flesh of the images, the essence of the characters are always directly and directly related to the understanding and perception of their contemporaries and fellow citizens of the artist.

Nothing can reflect the changes in this understanding and perception more clearly and visually than an illustration. And the value of this is all the more increased because, after all, it is the illustration that exists in the book next to the text, simultaneously with it comes to the reader.
If we talk about schools of illustration and design art, then in the modern world, Soviet book graphics (as a whole) has no equal, and this can serve as a matter of our legitimate pride: we have preserved and are developing one of the most valuable traditions of human culture, and it is precisely in such a period when it is threatened with decay and death.

Undoubtedly, the printing industry, like any other, must have its own engineering solutions, technical standards, its own design - this is indisputable, this is absolutely necessary.
But a book as a work of art cannot be given over to the power of an impersonal industrial assembly line, and even more so - a market template. This would cause enormous and irreparable damage to the spiritual life of people. There is no book without an artist! There can be no full-fledged publications worthy of the cultural life of our era without a figurative solution, without a lively, soul-stirring charm of individual originality!

I would like to believe that the book lovers of future generations, these glorious eccentrics, romantics and dreamers, will go somewhere to the ruins on the banks of the Seine or on Liteiny Prospekt in search of beautiful publications of our day, and not to the city dumps, where hastily scanned by readers and deprived of any figurative interest and visual-artistic value "sources of information" ...

Although the word itself has Greek roots and means "I write", "I draw". In our time, it is an independent and multifaceted species, which has its own genres and canons.

Types of graphic art

According to their purpose, graphic works are divided into the following types:

• Easel graphics. As an art form, it is close to painting, as it conveys vision and emotional world artist. Moreover, the master achieves this not due to the diversity of the palette of colors and various techniques their application to the canvas, but with the help of lines, strokes, spots and paper tones.
• Applied graphics as a form of fine art. Examples of it surround us everywhere, it has a specific purpose. For example, the illustration of books helps the reader to perceive its content more easily, posters and posters carry knowledge or advertising information. This also includes product labels, stamps, cartoons and many others.

Any kind of fine art (graphics, pictures are no exception) begins with a sketch of a drawing. All artists use it as the first step before writing the main canvas. It is in it that a projection of the position of the painting object in space is created, which is subsequently transferred to the canvas.

Graphic drawing

Graphics as a form of fine art, types of graphics of any direction begin with a drawing, as well as canvases in painting. For graphic drawing, paper is used, most often white, although options are possible.

his main hallmark is the contrast of two or more colors - black, white, gray. Other types of contrasts are possible, but even if the master uses a black pencil on white paper, the shades of the strokes are rich in variety from soft black to deep black.

Emotionally strong are drawings in black and white with the addition of one. It attracts the eye, and the focus of the viewer's eye is focused on a bright spot. Such graphics as a kind of fine art (the photo shows this very clearly) becomes an associative work when bright accent evokes personal memories in the viewer.

Tools for creating a graphic drawing

The simplest and most accessible means are graphite pencils and a regular ballpoint pen. Also, masters like to use ink, charcoal, pastel, watercolor and sanguine.

The graphite pencil is the most popular tool. This is a wooden or metal case, in which either a greyish-black graphite rod is inserted, or a colored one, in which dyes are added.

They do not have a body, but their colors can be mixed to get new shades.

The ink has a rich black color, easily falls on paper, and is used for calligraphy, drafting and drawing. It can be applied with a pen or brush. To obtain various shades of black, ink is diluted with water.

Graphics as an art form has not bypassed such a tool as coal. Charcoal has been used for drawing since ancient times, and in the 19th century art charcoal was created from compressed coal powder and adhesive materials.

Modern masters of graphics also use felt-tip pens with a rod of different thickness.

Printed graphics

This is not all types used in printing.

book graphics

This type of fine art includes the following:

• Book miniature. An ancient way to design manuscripts, which was used in Ancient Egypt. In the Middle Ages, the main theme of the miniature was religious motives, and only from the 15th century did secular subjects begin to appear. The main materials used by the miniature masters are gouache and watercolor.
• The design of the cover is the transfer of the emotional message of the book, its main theme. Here, the font, the size of the letters, and the pattern corresponding to its name should be harmonious. The cover presents the reader not only the author of the work, his work, but also the publishing house and the designer himself.
• Illustrations are used as an addition to the book, helping to create visual pictures for the reader for a more accurate perception of the text. This graphics as an art form originated in the days of printing, when manual miniatures were replaced by engravings. With illustrations, a person encounters in the very early childhood when he still does not know how to read, but learns fairy tales and their heroes through pictures.

Book graphics as a form of visual art in preschool education is learned through illustrated books that carry information in pictures for the youngest children, and through text with explanatory images for older children.

Poster as an art form

Another representative of graphic art is the poster. Its main function is to convey information using a short phrase with an image that enhances it. According to the scope of the posters are:

The poster is one of the most common types of graphics.

Applied Graphics

Another type of graphic art is the design of labels, envelopes, stamps and covers for videos and music discs.

• The label is a type of industrial graphics, the main purpose of which is to give the maximum about the product while minimum size Images. When creating a label, the color scheme is taken into account, which should cause the viewer to like and trust the product.
• Covers for discs carry the maximum information about the film or musical group passing it through the drawing.
• The graphic design of stamps and envelopes has a long history. The plots for them are most often events taking place in different countries, the world and big holidays. Stamps can be issued both as separate copies and as whole series, united by a single theme.

The stamp is perhaps the most common type of graphic art that has become a collector's item.

Modern graphics

With the advent computer technology began to develop the new kind graphic art - computer graphics. It is used to create and correct graphic images on the computer. Along with its emergence, new professions appeared, for example, a computer graphics designer.

Views: 8 317

A distinctive feature of book graphics is its close connection with printing, its dependence on the level and culture of work in printing production.

Based on the main tasks of book graphics, it is divided into design and illustration of the book. The design of the book includes its decorative outfit, its decoration, drawn font elements, the compositional construction of text types, etc. (cover, title page, title page, etc.) Illustrating a book (from Latin illustratio - a visual image, description) solves the problem of figurative disclosure of a literary text with the help of drawings (illustrations of various types). Immediately make a reservation that such a division is very conditional. In a good book, it is impossible to trace where the design ends and the illustration begins. We know examples of a convincing solution to the ideological concept and the construction of books only by means of design. Quite often in the design elements (on the cover, title page, dust jacket, etc.) we find a drawing that contributes to the disclosure of a literary text. Real illustrations in the book, with all the depth of the ideological, figurative solution, in

in turn, they do not lose their decorative effect, do not cease to be elements of the book's decoration, perfectly in harmony with the set, paper - with the nature of the book.

The complex organism of a book consists of many elements. Let's get acquainted with those elements in the solution of which the artist plays a leading role.

Cover (hardback)- an artistic solution for the cover of the book, in which the book block is enclosed. The cover solution, in which, as a rule, color is used, should be conditionally decorative, clear, give the book a beautiful appearance, but at the same time give an accurate description of the book, reveal its main meaning, style and figurative structure. The cover should have font elements that reflect the main heading data (author and title of the book).

dust jacket(from lat. super - above, over) is called the artistically designed paper cover of the book

over the cover. The main task of the dust jacket is to draw attention to the book and to protect the cover from damage for some time.

Title or title page- the right half of the first spread of the book.

The title contains more complex font elements that explain the heading and publishing data. Sometimes this data is extended to the adjacent, left page - the countertitle. This decision is called a reversal title. If an illustration is placed on the left page of the first spread or a portrait of the author is printed, such a page is called frontispiece. The drawing on the title is used relatively rarely and has more decorative value.

Shmuttitulami Separate sheets are called, which open parts, sections of the book. A heading and a simple ornamental motif or drawing are placed on it.

Illustrations- these are drawings that figuratively reveal a literary text, subordinate to the content and style of a literary work, at the same time decorating a book and enriching its decorative structure. The tasks of illustration are also partially solved in the drawings on the cover, title, intros, and endings.

Screensaver- a small composition of an ornamental nature or in the form of a drawing, opening some section of the text (the beginning of a book, part, chapter). The splash screen is closely related to the typesetting strip and never turns into an illustration.

ending- a small drawing or ornamental motif that completes the last page of a section or entire book.

Initial(from Latin initialis - initial) - the initial letter of any section in the text of a book, manuscript, created by the artist. In everyday life, the old Russian name of the initial has been preserved - a letter.

The first page of the text of the book, usually decorated with a headband or initial letter, is called a descent or

downhill strip.

This is a short list of the elements of the book. In addition to the obligatory cover and title for each book, all other elements are introduced to the extent required by the goals, purpose of the book, its volume, circulation and artist's intention.

The creative process in the art of book graphics is complex. The artist must capture the spirit of a literary work, its style and reflect it in his work. He is faced with the task of revealing the ideological and artistic content of the work by means of fine art, preserving the unity of the figurative and decorative structure of the book with the spirit of the work, the style of the writer, and giving a modern assessment of the literary work in his individual pictorial solution.

An important side of the art of book graphics is the obligatory consideration of the features of the printing structure of the book, its peculiar nature as a cultural value and as a thing. The artist of the book must work in a strictly defined, predetermined size (format). There are certain most rational standard formats.

The artist cannot arbitrarily change the proportions of the sheet, which creates certain difficulties and features in the composition. Based on the mandatory format, the artist determines the volume of the book, the number and type of pictorial elements, their distribution throughout the book, it must be clear to him what font the text will be typed in, what are the proportions of the typesetting strip and page margins. All pictorial elements in the book are very closely related to type. The creation of fonts is an ancient and high art. Many generations of artists have worked to create fonts with a beautiful design, perfect proportions, fonts that are clear, readable and varied in style. Only having a variety of beautiful fonts, you can successfully solve the problem of book design. Type elements of the cover, titles, dust jackets, half-titles, separate headings, as a rule, are drawn by artists. It is necessary to achieve their harmonious combination with typefaces, with pictorial elements. The book artist must not only know fonts and be able to use them, but also be able to modify existing fonts and create new ones that correspond to his idea, style of the book, character

literary work. Constantly caring about the printing and artistic unity of the book, the artist must know at least the basics of printing production and be in close contact with publishing workers preparing the book for publication, and printers. All the pictorial elements of the book should be harmoniously connected with the plane of the paper, with the strip of typesetting. When working, for example, on an illustration, the artist must have a clear idea of ​​how it will be combined with the typesetting strip on the next page, what the spread of the book will be like.

Modern book graphics are characterized by a variety of searches, bold experiments by many masters, different in their creative appearance.

A separate line in the art of book graphics should be considered magazine and newspaper graphics. The specificity of periodicals poses its own, special tasks for magazine and newspaper graphics. If a book serves a person for a long time and is devoted to a specific topic, one branch of knowledge, then rapidly changing (periodical) magazines and newspapers contain the most diverse material, reflecting the tasks of the day, covering the most diverse areas of human activity. The newspaper serves one day, it is read quickly, and all its visual elements should immediately fit into the mind, and therefore, be simple, beautiful and clear, convenient for quick perception. Line drawings are best perceived in newspapers. The journal publishes material of a review, generalizing nature. Quite often the magazine is addressed to a certain circle of readers (an agricultural magazine, a health magazine, a fashion magazine, etc.). But the magazine is also characterized by a variety of material and a short service life. The formats of magazines and the layout of the text in them differ significantly from those in books. The magazine drawing should be expressive and catchy, in good harmony with headings and typesetting. Very good for a sketchbook. They are favorably distinguished from photographs by the ability of the artist to display the most typical, to generalize

phenomenon, create an image, character; besides, the drawings fit much better with the set than the photographs. Today, unfortunately, our newspapers and magazines often abound with stamps that make it easy and quick to use computer technology.

Caricature(from it. caricatura< caricare – нагружать, преувеличивать) – особый сатирический жанр газетно-журнальной графики. В карикатуре намеренно подчеркиваются, преувеличиваются характерные черты и особенности человека или события для того, чтобы выполнить задачу разоблачения, осмеяния, воздействия. Самостоятельная (станковая) карикатура встречается сравнительно редко – она почти всегда связана с газетой, журналом, книгой, плакатом. В большинстве случаев карикатура сопровождается текстом. Благодаря печатным изданиям карикатура распространяется очень широко.