An influential teacher whose pen-and-ink drawings helped define the style of the early twentieth century, Edmund J. Sullivan sought to define the principles behind good illustration. His treatise richly illustrated with black-and-white engravings by Holbein, Durer, Rubens, Blake, and many others also offers suggestions on materials and methods.
Sullivan, who came of age during the heyday of graphic design and book illustration, was a firm believer in free but faithful artistic interpretations. In "The Art of Illustration, " he conducts a fascinating ramble through art history that ranges back and forth in time from his contemporaries including Beardsley, Dore, and Whistler to Botticelli and other old masters. Sullivan's knowledgeable and informative discourse covers symbolism, cartoons, the use of models, the illustration of poetry and plays, children's books, and a host of other topics of enduring interest to artists and art lovers."