Book illustration

illustration of crowing rooster facing the rising sun with a man, dressed in nightcap and sleeping gown, leaning out the window. Background shows two small figures walking along a fenced road.
Illustration from "The House that Jack Built" in The Complete Collection of Pictures & Songs; engraving and printing by Edmund Evans, illustration by Randolph Caldecott (1887)
One of 12 illustrations in the 4th edition of Paradise Lost by John Milton, by John Baptist Medina, 1688

The illustration of manuscript books was well established in ancient times, and the tradition of the illuminated manuscript thrived in the West until the invention of printing. Other parts of the world had comparable traditions, such as the Persian miniature. Modern book illustration comes from the 15th-century woodcut illustrations that were fairly rapidly included in early printed books, and later block books.[1] Other techniques such as engraving, etching, lithography and various kinds of colour printing were to expand the possibilities and were exploited by such masters as Daumier, Doré or Gavarni.[1]

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