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.[2]
Biography
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.[3] The illustrations of J. J. Grandville have been noted as an influence on his work.[4] Wood-engraving was his primary method at this time.[5] 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.[6] 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,[7] for a short poem which Pierre-Jean de Béranger had derived from a novel of Eugène Sue of 1845.[8][9][10]
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.[11] 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.[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.[14] 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).[15] 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.[citation needed]
The completed book London: A Pilgrimage, 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."[16] The Westminster Review claimed that "Doré gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down."[17] 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.[citation needed]
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.[18] At the time of his death Doré was working on illustrations for an edition of Shakespeare's plays.[19]
Works
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.
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".[38]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."[38]H.P. Lovecraft drew inspiration from Doré's Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrations in his formative years.[citation needed]
^Complete Works of Lord Byron illustrated by Ch. Mettais, Bocourt, G. Doré. Published by J. Bry, Paris, 1853. The version at archive.org is in French. The illustrations are not attributed to any one of the three named on the title-page. A handwritten note at page5 remarks that another edition of 1856 made no mention of Doré among the illustrators, but his designs still appeared in the book.
^Richard S. Levy, Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1, Oxford 2005, p 186
^David Kunzle (1983). "Gustave Dore's History of Holy Russia: Anti-Russian Propaganda from the Crimean War to the Cold War". The Russian Review. 42 (3). Russian Review, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul., 1983), pp. 271-299: 271–299. doi:10.2307/129823. JSTOR129823.
^Eleanor Garvey, A Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Philip Hofer Bequest, 1988.
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré.", page 183. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885.
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré.", page 179. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885.
^ abcRoosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré.", page 207. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885.
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré", pages 215. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885. Roosevelt states that "In Doré's catalogue 'L'Inferno' figures amongst the works of 1857, and I shall therefore speak of it as belonging to that year's collection, although it was not brought out until 1860."
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré", pages 63. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885. Gustave Doré, Edmond About, and H. Taine were more than contemporaries: they knew each other from college. Roosevelt quotes Doré, "...from that date [1847] until 1850, I occupied myself—sometimes well and sometimes badly—in finishing my studies at the Lycée Charlemagne. It was there that I was so fortunate as to have Edmond About and H. Taine for fellow-collegians."
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré", pages 241. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885. Roosevelt attributes authorship to "Malted": "'Les États Unis et la Mexique,' by Malted (sic) (Brun, Paris, 1862), 1 vol. in 4to." She is most likely referring to either Conrad Malte-Brun or his son, Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun, both noted French Geographers.
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré", page 242. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885. Roosevelt implies, though does not specifically state, that a French publisher published this volume in 1865. For one, she places this reference with the other books published in 1865, for another, she uses the word also when mentioning that Sampson Low brought out a copy in London in 1866. Additionally, an English publication would most likely be translated and have a title of Toilers of the Sea. Roosevelt's line reads thus: "Victor Hugo's 'Travailleurs de la Mer', also in 1866, brought out by Sampson Low and Co., in London."
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré.", page 242. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885. Roosevelt states that the preface was written by Alex. Dumas fils
^Although Blanche Roosevelt lists this book as being published in 1866, here Image:Le chemin des ecoliers title page.jpg is the title-page of an edition published five years earlier, with Gustave Doré drawings. Roosevelt is most likely mistaken.
^Leblanc, Henri (1931). Catalogue de l'oeuvre complet de Gustave Doré, Paris: Ch. Bosse, p. 74.
^Roosevelt, Blanche: "Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré.", page 488. Cassell & Company, Limited, New York, 1885.
^ abMilton, John (2005). "Introduction". Paradise Lost. London: Arcturus. ISBN9781841932514.
Roosevelt, Blanche (1885). Life and Reminiscence of Gustave Doré. New York: Cassell & Co., Ltd.(141 illustrations)
Jerrold, Blanchard (1891). The Life of Gustave Doré. London: W. H. Allen & Co., Ltd.(138 illustrations)
Valmy-Baysse, J. (1930). Gustave Doré – L'Art et la Vie. Paris: Editions Marcel Seheur.(314 illustrations)
Deze, Louis (1930). Gustave Doré – Bibliographie et catalogue complet de l'oeuvre. Paris: Editions Marcel Seheur.(103 illustrations)
LeBlanc, Henri (1931). Catalogue de l'oeuvre complet de Gustave Doré. Paris: Ch. Bosse.(30 illustrations)
Farner, Konrad (1963). Gustave Doré der Industrialisierte Romantiker ((2V) ed.). Dresden: Verlag der Kunst.(521 illustrations, reprinting most of the Delorme photogravures)
Renonciat, Annie (1983). La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Doré. Paris: ACR Edition.(343 illustrations)
Malan, Dan (1995). Gustave Doré, Adrift on Dreams of Splendor. St. Louis: MCE Publishing Co.(500 illustrations)
Fantasy & Faith: the Art of Gustave Doré. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2007. (exhibition book: 250 illustrations, 40 in full-color, sometimes incorrectly listed as, "40 b/w, 120 color illustrations")