Comments on: 0.05 Seen and Not Heard

By: Paul Gehl

Paul Gehl — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:50:03 +0000

There is an enormous literature and much debate on this question of how illustration was done. In textbooks specifically (and this cannot be generalized to all fields), the tendency is for the author of the text to specify the diagrams and illustrations required to the printer and the printer would then hire an artist to realize them. For manuscripts these artists were often part of a workshop team that confected the books to order. For printed books, the tendency was for a wood engraver to work from a pattern provided either by the author or by an artist. But typically in print there is an attempt to keep the illustrations closely related to the texts.

By: indradjojo

indradjojo — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:09:59 +0000

I was wondering too about the literacy rates. Roughly how many readers would be in these classrooms? Also, I know that in medieval manuscripts, the monks who wrote the texts did not usually illustrate the texts. Is this the same in printing? Would artists be commissioned to incorporate images to the texts?

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:37:58 +0000

The comment that early modern cultural had a strong sense of the visual is very interesting–I feel that we usually hear (with regards to stories at least, but learning too) that society was more verbal based, as with stories passed down by word of mouth etc. But this actually makes much more sense to me!

By: MQuinlan

MQuinlan — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:11:56 +0000

Ah the joys of the visual cortex.