| Gustave Doré | |
| Birth Name: | Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré |
| Birth Date: | 6 January 1832 |
| Birth Place: | Strasbourg, France |
| Death Place: | Paris, France |
| Field: | Painting, etching, illustrations |
| Movement: | Romanticism, symbolism |
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (in French ɡystav dɔʁe/; 6January 1832 – 23January 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrating classic literature, especially those for the Vulgate Bible and Dante's Divine Comedy. These achieved great international success, and he became renowned for printmaking, although his role was normally as the designer only; at the height of his career some 40 block-cutters were employed to cut his drawings onto the wooden printing blocks, usually also signing the image.
He created over 10,000illustrations, the most important of which were copied using an electrotype process using cylinder presses, allowing very large print runs to be published simultaneously in many countries.[1]
Doré was born in Strasbourg on 6January 1832. At the age of15, Doré began his career working as a caricaturist for the French paper Le journal pour rire.[2] The illustrations of J. J. Grandville have been noted as an influence on his work.[3] Wood-engraving was his primary method at this time.[4] In the late 1840s and early 1850s, he made several text comics, like Les Travaux d'Hercule (1847), Trois artistes incompris et mécontents (1851), Les Dés-agréments d'un voyage d'agrément (1851) and L'Histoire de la Sainte Russie (1854). Doré subsequently went on to win commissions to depict scenes from books by Cervantes, Rabelais, Balzac, Milton, and Dante. He also illustrated "Gargantua et Pantagruel" in 1854.
In 1853 Doré was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron.[5] This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated Bible. In 1856 he produced 12folio-size illustrations of The Legend of The Wandering Jew, which propagated longstanding antisemitic views of the time,[6] for a short poem which Pierre-Jean de Béranger had derived from a novel of Eugène Sue of 1845.[7] [8] [9] In the 1860s he illustrated a French edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, and his depictions of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, became so famous that they influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors' ideas of the physical "look" of the two characters.[10] Doré also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", an endeavor that earned him 30,000francs from publisher Harper & Brothers in 1883.[11]
The government of France made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1861.[12] Doré's illustrations for the Bible (1866) were a great success, and in 1867 Doré had a major exhibition of his work in London. This exhibition led to the foundation of the Doré Gallery in Bond Street, London.[13] In 1869, Blanchard Jerrold, the son of Douglas William Jerrold, suggested that they work together to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. Jerrold had obtained the idea from The Microcosm of London produced by Rudolph Ackermann, William Pyne, and Thomas Rowlandson (published in three volumes from 1808 to 1810).[14] Doré signed a five-year contract with the publishers Grant & Co that involved his staying in London for three months a year, and he received the vast sum of £10,000 a year for the project. Doré was celebrated for his paintings in his day, but his wood-engravings, like those he did for Jerrold, are where he excelled as an artist with an individual vision.
The completed book , with 180wood engravings, was published in 1872. It enjoyed commercial and popular success, but the work was disliked by some contemporary British critics, as it appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in parts of London. Doré was accused by The Art Journal of "inventing rather than copying."[15] The Westminster Review claimed that "Doré gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down."[16] But they impressed Vincent van Gogh, who painted a version of the Prisoners' Round in 1890, the year of his death. The book was a financial success, however, and Doré received commissions from other British publishers.
Doré's later work included illustrations for new editions of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Milton's Paradise Lost, Tennyson's Idylls of the King, The Works of Thomas Hood, and The Divine Comedy. Doré's work also appeared in the weekly newspaper The Illustrated London News.
Doré never married and, following the death of his father in 1849, he continued to live with his mother, illustrating books until his death of a heart attack in Paris on January23, 1883, following a short illness.[17] At the time of his death Doré was working on illustrations for an edition of Shakespeare's plays.[18]
Doré was a prolific artist; thus the following list of works is not complete and it does not include his paintings, sculptures, and many of his journal illustrations:
| Date | Author | Work | Volumes / Format | Illustrations | Publisher | Ref | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1854 | Gustave Doré | Histoire pittoresque dramatique et caricaturale de la Sainte Russie, d'après les chroniqueurs et historiens Nestor Nikan Sylvestre Karamsin Ségur etc. | 1 vol. | 500 | Paris: de Bry | [19] [20] | |
| 1854 | Oeuvres contenant la vie de Gargantua et celle de Pantagruel ... | 1 vol. 4to. | Frontis. & 15 | J.Bry Ainé, Paris | [21] | ||
| 1855 | Honoré de Balzac | Les Contes Drôlatiques | 425 | Société Générale de la Libraire, and in Le Journal pour Tous | [22] | ||
| 1855 | Jules Gérard | La Chasse au Lion | 1 vol. 12mo. | 11 | Librairie Nouvelle | [23] | |
| 1856 | Fierabras d'Alexandrie, Légende Nationale traduite par Mary Lafon | 1 vol in 8vo | 123 | Librairie Nouvelle | [24] | ||
| 1856 | Victor Percival | Mémoires d'un Jeune Cadet, par Victor Percival | 48 | ||||
| 1856 | La Légende du Juif Errant | 1 vol. grand in folio | 12 | Michel Lévy | |||
| 1857[25] | Dante Alighieri | L'Enfer | 75[26] | [27] | |||
| 1857 autumn | Ed. de La Bédollière | Nouveau Paris, Histoire de ses 20 Arrondissements | 1 vol in 4to | 150 | Barba | [28] | |
| 1857 autumn | Valéry Vernier | Aline, Journal d'un Jeune Homme | one large page | Dentu | |||
| 1860–1862 | Thomas Mayne Reid | L'Habitation du Désert | 1 vol. in 16mo | 60 | Hachette | ||
| 1860–1862 | Ann S. Stevens | La Fille du Grand Chieftain | 1 vol. | 15 | |||
| 1860–1862 | M. V. Victor | Flêche d'Or | 1 vol. | 13 | |||
| 1860–1862 | E. S. Ellis | L'Ange des Frontières | 1 vol. | 10 | |||
| 1860–1862 | N. W. Buxted | Les Vierges de la Forêt | 1 vol. | 10 | |||
| 1860 | William Shakespeare | The Tempest | 1 vol. in 4to | (London) | |||
| 1861 | Les Figures du Temps | 1 vol. in 12mo | (Paris) | ||||
| 1861 | Plouvier and Vincent | Les Chansons d'Autrefois | in 12mo | Coulon and Pineau, Paris | |||
| 1861 | Edmond About[29] | Le Roi des Montagnes | 1 vol. in 8vo | 157 | Hachette and Co., Paris | ||
| 1862 | Saintine | Les Mythologies du Rhin | 1 vol. in 8vo | 165 | Hachette and Co., Paris | ||
| 1862 | L'Abbé Léon Godard | L'Espagne, Mœurs et Paysages | 2 vols in 8vo | 4 | Alfred Mame et Fils, Tours or Paris | ||
| 1862 | Malte-Brun[30] | Les États Unis et le Mexique | 1 vol. in 4to | Brun, Paris | |||
| 1862 | Histoire aussi intéressante qu'invraisemblable de l'intrépide Capitaine Castagnette, neveu de l'Homme à la Tête de Bois | 1 vol. in 4to | 43 | Hachette | |||
| 1862 | Charles Perrault | Les Contes de Perrault | 11 | [31] | |||
| 1862 | Aventures du Baron de Münchausen, traduction nouvelle par Théophile Gautier fils | 1 vol. | (Paris, Charles Furne) | ||||
| 1863 | M. Épiné | Légende de Croquemitaine | 1 vol. in 4to | 177 | Hachette | ||
| 1863 | Gastineau | La Chasse au Lion et à la Panthère | 1 vol. in 8vo | Hachette and Co. | |||
| 1863 | Miguel de Cervantes | Don Quixote de la Mancha translation by Louis Viardot | 2 vols. folio | 370 | Hachette and Co., Paris, and Cassell and Co., London | ||
| 1863 | Charles Perrault | Les Contes de Perrault or in Spanish Los Cuentos de Perrault | 100+ | Hetzels. in Spanish by Ledouse | |||
| 1865 | Gastineau | De Paris en Afrique | 1 vol. in 12mo | (Paris) | |||
| 1865 | A. Masse | L'Histoire d'un Minute | 1 vol., 12mo | (Paris) | |||
| 1866 | Victor Hugo | Travailleurs de la Mer | Sampson Low and Co., London | [32] | |||
| 1865 | E. Edgar | Cressy and Poictiers | 1 vol. in 8vo | 50+ | (London) | ||
| 1865 | Thomas Moore | L'Épicurien (French translation) | in 8vo | (Paris) | |||
| 1865 | Tom Hood | Fairy Realm | in folio | (London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler) | |||
| 1865 | Quatrelles | Le Chevalier Beautemps | grand in 8vo | (Paris) | [33] | ||
| 1865 | Chateaubriand | Atala | 2 vols, grand folio | 80 | Hachette Edition | ||
| 1866 | Théophile Gautier | Le Capitaine Fracasse | 1 vol. grand in 8vo | 60 | Charpentier | ||
| 1866 | G. La Bédollière | Histoire de la Guerre en Mexique | in 4to | (Paris) | |||
| 1866 | Dante Alighieri | The Vision of Hell | London, Cassell, Petter, and Galpin | ||||
| 1867 | Dante Alighieri | Il Purgatorio ed il Paradiso | Hachette and Co. | ||||
| 1866[34] | X. B. Saintine | Le Chemin des Écoliers | 1 vol. in 8vo | 450 (not all by Doré) | Hachette and Co. | ||
| 1866 | La Grande Bible de Tours, according to the Vulgate, new translation | 2 vols. grand in folio | 241 | Mame, Tours; Cassell and Co., England | |||
| 1866 | John Milton | Paradise Lost | 50 Plates | Cassell and Co. | |||
| 1867 | La Bédollière | La France et la Russie | (Paris) | ||||
| 1867 | Les Fables de Lafontaine | 2 vols. in folio | 8 large and 250 small plates | Hachette and Co. | |||
| 1867 | Les Pays-bas et la Belgique | in 8vo | (Paris) | ||||
| 1870 | Thomas Hood | (Poems) | 2 vols. in folio | 9 Plates | Ward and Lock, London | ||
| 1873 | Rabelais | New edition of Rabelais | 2 vols. in folio | Paris : Garnier; London: Chatto and Windus | |||
| 1876 | Louis Énault | London | 1 vol. in 4to | 174 wood-engravings | Hachette and Co. | ||
| 1874 | Baron Ch. Davilliers | L'Espagne | in 4to | 309 wood-engravings | Hachette and Co.; London: Sampson Low and Co. | ||
| 1875 | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | in folio | 39 engraved plates and 3 vignettes | London: Doré Gallery | [35] | |
| 1875 | Michaud | Histoire des Croisades | 2 vol. medium folio | 100 grand compositions | Paris: Hachette and Co. | ||
| Alfred Tennyson | Idylls of the King | ||||||
| 1877 | Ariosto | Orlando Furioso | 36 drawings | Hachette and Co. (London: Ward and Lock) | |||
| 1884 | Edgar Allan Poe | The Raven | 26 steel engravings | London: Sampson Low and Co., New York: Harper and Co. | [36] | ||
| 1890 | Gustave Doré | The Doré Bible Gallery | Illustrated by Gustave Doré | Philadelphia |
Doré's work received mixed reviews from contemporary art critics, but he was widely acclaimed by the general public. He was adored by many writers and poets, who felt he "brought their wildest dreams and fantasies to life".[37] Théophile Gautier for example stated "Nobody better than this artist can give a mysterious and deep vitality to chimeras, dreams, nightmares, intangible shapes bathed in light and shade, weirdly caricatured silhouettes and all the monsters of fantasy."[37] H.P. Lovecraft drew inspiration from Doré's Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrations in his formative years.