Brad Holland wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly defining movements in art. The last category was about illustration of which he wrote: “Almost everybody is an artist these days. . . . singers are artists. So are movie directors, performance artists, makeup artists, tattoo artists and rap artists. Movie stars are artists . . . The only people left in America who seem not to be artists are illustrators.” Rosemary Wells, an illustrator interviewed by Will Hillenbrand in the Artist’s magazine, said, “I always knew I would be an artist. Where I ran into trouble was in art school, which taught abstract art – something that I still have no concept of. I learned that all my ability to draw figures for a narrative was a second tier art form, not fine art. I and every other illustrator have lived with this. If you ask Milton Glaser, or any of the great illustrators, illustration was considered second tier and children’s art, even third tier.. . . (re: artists in the Saturday Evening Post) All the artists, not just Norman Rockwell, created an entire world in one drawing. . narrative art has that quality of immediacy, of drawing the viewer in, because what you’re saying is ‘Here is a new world, this is a different world than you know . . . This is a world I see’.” C’mon people! Let’s start talking about these talented people as ARTISTS !
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