Comparative Study Of Earlier Eastern And Western Manuscript Illustrations

Illustration, as an important form of visual communication, with its "one-graph-win-thousand-words" intuitiveness, vividness and infectiousness, has always been very popular. Nowadays, art of illustration is expanding from books, newspapers, magazines and other traditional media into animation Internet web and other broader areas. The trend will undoubtedly bring illustration designers wider room for creativity, but also call for more innovation and pose new challenges.Creativity does not necessarily come from standing in front of times, in the era when everyone is eager for innovation. One can gain access to the source of creation, by reviewing the lengthy manuscript illustrations of western history.However, there has been just a hundred years since China's ancient illustration gained attention of academics and became a research subject. Furthermore, during this hundred years, research focus has been biased towards art history point of view, i.e. the illustrations as prints of art. Likewise, western manuscript illustrations are studied merely as a branch of painting in art development history, in lack of a separate study of the manuscript illustrations.The author tries to analyze and compare earlier manuscript illustrations of both eastern and western cultures from religion, aesthetics, decorative themes and symbols in decorative patterns, through systematic study of types, themes, styles and style changes of manuscript illustrations in the same historic times. Seeking to avoid stopping at the surface of the work, the author puts more focus on comparison of aesthetics and historic meaning behind form and style. The author intends to enhance mutual understanding and reduce misunderstanding between eastern and western culture, to gain deeper insights into earlier works of manuscript illustrations, and to apply valuable experience of tradition into guiding design practice and innovation.