Gustave Doré was a French illustrator who lived in the second part of 1800. He was a very prolific artist who specialised in the art of gravure and let hundred of children and adults be scared by his vivid drawings. Even today, there are few artists who have been able to equal his sensitive mastery. The book we present in this story is the most accurate and complete collection to date. The Art of Gustave Dorè had an incredible success thanks to the delicious application he made of the wood-engraving technique. Gustave Dorè illustrated, the great journey of Dante Alighieri and other fairy tales with a special technique called “Gravure”, in French language, giving these stories a frightening and horrifying taste, with which they have come to life and shocked countless children and adults minds. To make his drawings into engravings, and those prepared for printing, Gustave Doré relied on great master wood engravers, such as Adolphe Pannemaker and Héliodore Pisan. These two artists were able to interpret the nuances conceived by Doré with exceptional sensitivity, masterfully transferring them onto wood. The English term for gravure is “engraving”. It is a discipline in which the artist engraves a design on a hard, solid surface, such as a stone, certain types of metal or wood.

To let you see more about this great artist and his art, we selected this video “ Gustave Doré, L’imaginaire au pouvoire” (Gustave Dorè, The power of imagination) produced by Museè d’Orsay, in conjunction with the exhibition that was held in honor of Dorè in 2014. As proof of how much his illustrations were loved  by the entire world, here is this wonderful tribute, created by the two artists (Lorenzo Papace and Vincent PianinaI), who fully grasped the creativity of this artist. Letting him walk in his frightening, etched, fairy-tale world. They were able to show his greatness and magnificence in an eccentric way – The perfect way to express his inimitable uniqueness. –

Gustave Doré – “L’imaginaire au pouvoir” A video made by Lorenzo Papace and Vincent Pianina, Produced by Musée d’Orsay.

Gustave Doré: His Art

In honor of this great artist, here is what the Museè d’Orsay wrote about him and his art:

“An extremely eclectic and multifaceted artist, Gustave Doré measured himself with all techniques and formats – painting, watercolor, drawing, sculpture, wood- engraving – and with various pictorial genres, realizing in this way “giant paintings and more intimate canvases, brilliant and luminous watercolors, shaded ink drawings of great technical virtuosity, scratching vignettes made in pen, engravings, bizarre illustrations and even baroque, extravagant, monumental, enigmatic sculptures…” Museé d’Orsay

Gustave Doré Illustrations Gallery

If you like these marvelous drawings, I cannot suggest enough how much you will love a beautiful book called “Gustave Doré, 1832-1883: Master of Imagination”, and recommend you this article too: “Claire Wendling’s Forget Me Not will probably unlock your your art addiction once for all”