THE DORÉ BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS

A collection of Gustave Dore's illustrations for the Bible, first published in France in 1865. You don't need to be a believer to appreciate the power and beauty of Dore's art. Of particular beauty and interest: pg 1, The Creation of Light; pg 7, The Deluge; pg 8, The Dove Sent Forth From the Ark; pg 15, Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness; pg 35, The Firstborn Slain, pg 75, David and Goliath; pg 162, The Nativity; pg 194, The Prodigal Son in the Arms of His Father; pg 216, The Darkness at the Crucifixion; pg 237, The Vision of Death; pg 239, Babylon Fallen. The majority of illustrations remind me what a violent book the Bible is, particularly the Old Testament.

The Bible as illustrated by Gustave Doré was first published in the French version in 1865, and
within the next few years other editions followed, tll the main European languages and in Hebrew
This work is of prime importance in the history of nineteenth-century art: in a period when illus-
trated books flourished as never before, the most famous of illustrators was working on the great
best-seller. In the mid-1860's Doré was at the height of his fame and his extraordinary fecundity
As he worked on the two hundred forty-one plates for the Book of Books, he called forth his highest
powers.

Gustave Doré (1832-1883), born in Alsace at Strasbourg, son of a civil engineer, began his ca-
reer in Paris at the age of sixteen, as a contri- butor to Philipon's new comic paper, Le Journal
pour rire. He was immediately popular, and "le gamin de génie," as Théophile Gautier called
him, rapidly became celebrated. His father insisted on his completing his schooling and there
was no opportunity for an academic training in art; he snatched time for unorthodox study in the
galleries of the Louvre and the streets of Paris.
He was gifted with an extraordinary visual mem.He soon became, soith the death of his father,
the chief support of his mother and two brothers, taking on all the work he could get: pictorial jour-
nalism, travel books, fiction of varying quality
Though much of his early work was topical caricature, the stinging understanding of his older
contemporary Daumier was quite outside his range-he was no politiciarn...

He started work in the year of revolutions
1848, and it was in the reactionary period that
followed, the Second Empire, that he became fa-
Lle in this societv...