THE ILLUSTRATING TRAVELER:
ADVENTURE AND ILLUSTRATION IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 1760-1895

The travel narrative is one of the earliest and most enduring of literary genres. From the Odyssey onward, the interest of the public in hearing tales of foreign places, and the desire of the traveler to tell them, have never wavered. Through their words of description writers tried to provide their readers with pictures of places and things seen. Early travel narratives very seldom contained accurate illustrations; pictures were generally included for decoration, not illustration and readers relied on the verbal text for information.

In the 18th century travel accounts began increasingly to incorporate illustration as a parallel visual text to describe and explain the observations of travelers. The ability of pictures to accurately convey detail and nuance gave both the artistic and scientific traveler a new tool with which to explain their experience to the reader. With the invention of the new printing techniques of aquatint and lithography in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the possible uses for illustration increased in sophistication and affordability.

  thanks to dublog