An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation.
The word comes from the latin word illustratio, illustro meaning enlighten, irradiate.
Printing is the current process for reproducing illustrations, typically with ink onpaper using a printing press. Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for children’s books.