Roland Barthes
1977/1995
"The emission and the reception of the message both lie within the fields of a sociology: it is a matter of studying human groups, of defining motives and attitudes, and trying to link the behaviour of these groups to the social totality of which they are a part."
Roland Barthes
While Barthes is talking about photography and film here I believe a lot of what he has to say also extends to the reception of drawing and illustration. Obviously I will have to be extremal careful in which of his opinions and theories I use to bolster my argument, but his work in semiotics is not something to be overlooked when researching how an audience reacts and reads image within text.
"These two structures are co-operative but, since their units are heterogeneous, necessarily remain separate from one another here (in the text) the substance of the message is made up of words; there (in the photograph) of lines, shades, surfaces."
Here's where I need to be careful. Barthes is talking about the press photograph within a newspaper /magazine, how while they may be presenting the same 'story' they are still perceived as different mediums. This is similar to the illustration within a book, there is no way that both mediums can be viewed in the same way but they can have a dual discourse. Drawing in the place of photography here, is a subject of style (result of the action of the creator) and therefore it is much easier for it to present differing ideas and signifiers that may alter or clash with the written story.
One must take presidency over your attention, when you turn a page this will undoubtedly be the illustration (unless done carefully) therefore altering or pre-empting your reading of the text. This may be a positive thing but can quite as easily ruin a narrative moment. (Its up to the author and illustrator!)
"Certainly the image is not reality but at least it is a perfect analogon and it is exactly this analogical perfection which, to common sense, defines the photograph."
Here is the main difference between a photograph and illustration. While neither are reality the photo is a perfect reflection of reality, an analogon. (scene, object, landscape.) The illustration cannot be this because of it is a product of style, of an individuals actions.
This is why 'drawing' is better suited (in my own and general opinion) to illustrating fiction than photography. Many non-fiction books are commonly illustrated with photography because what they show is fact whereas fiction (while it may be presented by the author as fact while knowingly fiction for effect) is usually open for interpretation and very obviously not 'real'. A solid definite photographic representation of a character for example, might interfere with the written or that which a reader has already perceived from the of text themselves. An illustration which by its nature is stylised does not show a definite representation and is thus open to interpretation or even to be 'ignored'.
Of course if the style of illustration is highly realistic and not vague (more like a photograph) then the freedom of self visualisation is narrowed. Yet it will still be recognised as illustration and therefore can be regarded as fiction, whereas photography still has a 'real' element. You know that the photo has had to have been taken. The scene must have existed. and therefore those are the accurate representation of the characters/scene.
However I think to a point the choice between illustration and photography within a fiction book depends on the genre. While photography will generally work against a fantasy book like Lord of the Rings perhaps for the reason that photography doesn't exist within the story and its 'world' or that the visuals described in the text are not easily presented in the medium doesn't mean it can't be sympathetic to other genres. The very nature of Fantasy and scifi allow it to be illustrated without huge risk of subverting a readers pre-conceived visualisation.
Fiction books that represent non-fiction stories like 'The Help' for example are more privy to use photography since the story is set within our own world and history. The charters and landscapes are not fantastical as in other genres but real and photogenic. This is not to say that illustration shouldn't be used in this situation only that is not the only medium and may be handled differently to a drawing for an fantasy book say.
Doctored photography may work well within sci-fi books since it is a digital and progressive medium or in a fictional history book, found or altered historic photography could be used.
I think I've lost my point but this is interesting too!
"In short all these 'imitative' arts comprise two messages; a denoted message, which is the analogon itself, and a connoted message, which is the manner in which the society to a certain extent communicates with it thinks of it."
" ...there is no drawing, no matter how exact, whose very exactitude is not turned into a style." -Barthes
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