Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 18 Mar 2016

Milton’s Paradise Lost  illustrated by Gustave Doré

Gustave Doré, who died in 1883, was an artist and illustrator whose style is immediately recognisable. He is probably best remembered for the engravings he produced in his later years to illustrate some of the great classics of literature – Coleridge, Tennyson, Dante and Milton.

I stumbled on this first edition of Doré’s treatment of Milton’s Paradise Lost and was able to pick it up cheaply owing to the relatively poor condition of the book – the front cover is stained, the spine is cracked and pages are foxed. However, the plates are still all in place and in very good condition and that is really the whole point of this volume.

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Stylistically, Doré is, in many ways, a classic Victorian illustrator but his choice of subject matter and the focus of much of his work is anything but typical. Paradise Lost gives us an pretty good example of the way  Doré approaches his subjects – seemingly conventional but in reality full of idiosyncrasies that lift them above the average engraver of his time.

It has often been said of Milton’s great poem that the author wrote most convincingly and most engagingly about evil and came alive when describing the darkness of Lucifer and his cohorts. By contrast his portraits of God and Heaven are relatively insipid and lack the fullness and sheer bravura of his descriptions of Hell. Much the same can be said of Doré  - he too struggles with the blandness of Paradise and revels in the hoards of Hell.

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The engravings are detailed and richly imagined. It is easy to see the residue of the great Romantic tradition here in Doré – nature is always immense and within it the creation, human and superhuman, seems isolated and small. Doré’s depiction of Lucifer seated on a precipice contemplating Earth below is an extraordinary statement of nature’s grandeur.

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I sometimes find Doré’s work oppressive and sombre and I certainly think that in the case of all of his books that less is more. He is fond of the subtle grey shades produced by engraving whereas I’m temperamentally drawn to the harsher black and white contrasts produced by woodprints. However, I have to acknowledge just what a great technician he is and how well his work dovetails with the right subjects. His work, for example, illustrating the London poor in Henry Mayhew’s writings provide him with the perfect subject matter for his talents.

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You can get some very good reprints of Doré’s best work ( and some astonishingly horrible ones too – so take care ) and if you light on one of these you will lose very little in comparison to the originals. I suspect that he is an artist who either speaks to you or leaves you a bit cold – why not find out which category you find yourself in? 

Terry Potter

March 2016

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