Importance of Relevant Visual Illustrations in Art Text Books

Abstract

A cursory survey of art textbooks used in tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria indicates that authors and publishers do not pay attention to the use of visual illustrations as a way of elucidating texts. While some art textbooks have badly printed visual illustrations, others do not have any illustrations at all, just as some have seemingly sufficient but irrelevant illustrations. These art textbooks appear to concentrate more on text rather than balancing textual information and visual illustrations for effective communication. Using the analysis of four randomly selected art textbooks used by visual arts students in Cross River University of Technology, Calabar, Nigeria, this paper seeks to verify the volume of text in art textbooks as compared to the number of relevant visual illustrations that go with them.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n3p47