Picturing the Unseen

        There is a particular issue that comes up when illustrating fantasy, which is how to depict those things that are unseen: invisible, or never witnessed by human eyes.  It’s a contradiction that encompasses illustrators of dinosaurs, prehistoric personalities, and ancient cities, as well, but it hits fantasy and sci-fi illustrators particularly hard.  I think invisibility deserves its own post some day, so for now I’m thinking about drawing things that no one has ever seen.

        First, there are the things that, within the context of a story, are perfectly visible, such as dragons, time machines, or indeed any fictional person, place, or thing.  These cannot be drawn from life or copied from reference photos, so what’s an artist to do?  The more popular mythical things, such as dragons and fairies, have no shortage of previous depictions to be used for inspiration, but some creatures are entirely new.  The most common method for depicting fantastical things is the chimera approach: wings like a bat, tail like a snake, feet

like a raptor, and so on.  In other words, find something real that relates to it, and use that model just for the element to which it relates.  In many cases we have written descriptions to work from, as well.  Ultimately, however, there has to be a picture in the mind to be used for guidance, instead of a real object or photo.  All we have to do is imagine something, and then it can be drawn.

        What about things that even within the context of a story, no one has ever seen?  Some ghosts or spirits are supposed to be invisible, some objects are hidden away in utmost secrecy, some beings are veiled from mortal view by darkness, light, mist, or distance…  In these cases  we must make pictures that reveal nothing — Or we get caught in a contradiction.

        This is an illumination of the simurgh, a bird that this thirteenth century Persian bestiary tells us lives “in fastnesses never penetrated by man,” and hidden from view.  The marginal note is by a later reader, who wrote testily, “Thou fool, if nobody has seen the simurgh, then how dost thou portray it?”  It’s a fair point.  Here’s where an artist’s superpowers become evident: sometimes an illustrator is omniscient and can show you in lavish and loving detail what no mortal has ever seen.  I say, just go with it!

        For a satirical little poem about a never-seen microbe (with a picture, of course!) revisit this previous post.

[Pictures: 10. Landscape with Ruins and Cylinder Segments, wood block print by Lorenz Stöer, 1567 (Image from TU);

Drollery, rubber block print by AEGN, 2019;

Simurgh, painting from Persian bestiary, c 1297-1300 (Image from The Morgan Library & Museum).]