(French pronunciation: January 6, 1832 - January 23, 1883) was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Dore worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving. Dore was born in Strasbourg and his first illustrated story was published at the age of fifteen. His skill had manifested itself even earlier, however. At age five he had been a prodigy troublemaker, playing pranks that were mature beyond his years. Seven years later, he began carving in cement. Subsequently, as a young man, he began work as a literary illustrator in Paris, winning commissions to depict scenes from books by Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante. In 1853, Dore was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron. This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated English Bible. A decade later, he illustrated a French edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, and his depictions of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, have become so famous that they have influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors' ideas of the physical "look" of the two characters. Dore also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", an endeavor that earned him 30,000 francs from publisher Harper & Brothers in 1883. Dore's English Bible (1866) was a great success, and in 1867 Dore had a major exhibition of his work in London. This exhibition led to the foundation of the Dore Gallery in Covelant Bond Street. 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 in 1808. Dore 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. Dore was mainly celebrated for his paintings in his day. His paintings remain world renowned, but his woodcuts and engravings, like those he did for Jerrold, are where he really excelled as an artist with an individual vision. The completed book, London: A Pilgrimage, with 180 engravings, was published in 1872. It enjoyed commercial and socioeconomical success, but the work was disliked by many contemporary critics. Some of these critics were concerned with the fact that Dore appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in parts of London. Dore was accused by the Art Journal of "inventing rather than copying." The Westminster Review claimed that "Dore gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down." The book was a financial success, however, and Dore received commissions from other British publishers.  Related Paintings of Gustave Dore :. | Gustave Dore | Loch Lomond | Andromeda | Les Saltimbanques | The Enigma |
Related Artists:
John Mather
Australian painter, etcher and teacher. 1848-1916
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate engravings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benedette.
BARTOLOMEO, Fra
b. 1473, Firenze, d. 1517 b. 1473, Firenze, d. 1517 He was born in Savignano di Prato, Tuscany. He received the nickname of Baccio della Porta for his house was near the Porta ("Gate") San Pier Gattolini. Starting from 1483 or 1484, by recommendation of Benedetto da Maiano, he apprenticed in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli. In 1490 or 1491 he began a collaboration with Mariotto Albertinelli. In the late 1490s Baccio was drawn to the teachings of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced what he viewed as vain and corrupt contemporary art. Savonarola argued for art serving as a direct visual illustration of the Bible to educate those unable to read the book. From 1498 is his famous portrait of Savonarola, now in the Museo Nazionale di San Marco in Florence. The following year he was commissioned a fresco of the Universal Judgement for the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova, completed by Albertinelli and Giuliano Bugiardini when Baccio became a Dominican friar on July 26, 1500. The following year he entered the convent of San Marco. He renounced painting for several years, not resuming until 1504 when he became the head of the monastery workshop in obedience to his superior. In that year he began a Vision of St. Bernard for Bernardo Bianco's family chapel in the Badia Fiorentina, finished in 1507. Soon thereafter, Raphael visited Florence and befriended the friar. Bartolomeo learned perspective from the younger artist, while Raphael added skills in coloring and handling of drapery, which was noticeable in the works he produced after their meeting. With Raphael, he remained on the friendliest terms, and when he departed from Rome, left in his hands two unfinished pictures which Raphael completed. At the beginning of 1508 Bartolomeo moved to Venice to paint a Holy Father, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena for the Dominicans of San Pietro Martire in Murano, influenced somewhat by Venetian colorism. As the Dominicans did not pay the work, he took it back to Lucca, where it can be seen now. Also in Lucca, in the October 1509, he painted by Albertinelli an altarpiece with Madonna and Child with Saints for the local cathedral. On November 26, 1510 Pier Soderini commissioned him an altarpiece for the Sala del Consiglio of Florence, now in the Museum of San Marco. Two years later he finished another altarpiece for the cathedral of Besancon.