Long time readers of Lines and Colors know that I take great pleasure in many types of visual art, and that I like to blur and cross the lines between genres. In particular, I like to point out the artificiality of the distinction between illustration and “fine art”.

Not that I don’t find it a useful distinction, the intention and approach are often different, but I object to the snobbery often found in “fine art” circles that says that illustration is “not art”. The insistence on this distinction can often be vehement, even to the point of lawsuits to declare a piece of illustration “not art”.

My favorite response to this is a quote from illustrator Brad Holland:

Almost everybody is an artist these days. Rock and Roll singers are artists. So are movie directors, performance artists, make-up artists, tattoo artists, con artists and rap artists. Movie stars are artists. Madonna is an artist, because she explores her own sexuality. Snoop Doggy Dogg is an artist because he explores other people’s sexuality. Victims who express their pain are artists. So are guys in prison who express themselves on shirt cardboard. Even consumers are artists when they express themselves in their selection of commodities. The only people left in America who seem not to be artists are illustrators.

This snobbery is essentially a form of class warfare; illustration is, after all, mass-reproduced art for the masses, and “fine art” is the domain of the wealthy (the ability to buy it not to create it, artists are supposed to live in noble poverty, while collectors, auction houses and speculators make the money).

Those of us who appreciate visual art in its many forms can revel in the “you don’t know what you’re missing” feeling of traversing the line between illustration and “fine art” at will, enjoying the best of what both worlds have to offer.

There is an exhibit currently on view at the Brandywine River Museum, always a bastion of great illustration art, that explores this often strained relationship. Double Lives: American Painters as Illustrators features both illustration by artists known mostly as “fine artists” and gallery paintings by illustrators, as well as paintings and drawings by these artists in their own genres.

The artists represented include American Impressionist Childe Hassam, who started his career illustrating children’s books, Winslow Homer, whose Civil War drawings appeared in Harper’s Weekly; and numerous other artists like Frederick Remington, John Sloan, Grant Wood, Rockwell Kent, William Glackens (image above, bottom left) and, of course, a number of striking pieces form the museum’s own collection of works by the great illustrator (and gallery artist) N.C. Wyeth (above, bottom right).

For those who are within visiting range, the exhibit is worth it just for a few outstanding pieces that are on loan, including Childe Hassam’s beautiful Jour du Grand Prix (image above, top, zoomable view here), from the New Britain Museum of American Art, which co-organized the exhibit; as well as a striking large piece by Edwin Austin Abbey, and other gems.

There is a catalog accompanying the exhibition, but I didn’t see it while I was at the museum, and I’m not certain if it’s been released yet.

Double Lives: American Painters as Illustrators runs at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA until November 23, 2008.

The study of human anatomy has long been a juncture of art and science. The dissection of cadavers, at times forbidden by the church and state, has been of fascination to artists as much as to those endeavoring to figure out how this wondrous collection of bones, flesh and fluids works.

Just as the scientific or medical examination of the body has been of interest to artists working to represent the human form, so artists have played a vital role in recording and making clear those discoveries, a tradition carried on today in the specialties of medical and scientific illustration.

Dream Anatomy is a special online feature from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, originally accompanying a physical exhibit at the National Library of Medicine, which explores this relationship and the history of anatomical representation, including a fascinating gallery of anatomical art.

Many of the pieces, like the image above, Anatomia per uso et intelligenza del disegno ricercata…, are collaborative works between anatomists and artists, in this case anatomist Bernardino Genga and artist Charles Errard.

The exhibit includes a broad range of images, both in the gallery and accompanying articles, from modern anatomical drawing, Renaissance, Baroque and Victorian artists, as well as Aboriginal “skeleton” drawings and contemporary gallery of children’s drawings of “Under Your Skin“.

They missed the chance, though, to include some of the representations of “spiritual” anatomy, as seen in the work of visionary painters like Alex Grey and Mati Klarwein.

In the image above, I love the foreground figure, apparently an angel, with wing bones connected to the scapulae.

[Link via BoingBoing]