1832 -1883 · Strasbourg, Paris, London and Spain

Colossal imagination, theatrical chiaroscuro and graphic invention made Gustave Doré one of the most influential illustrators of the 19th century.

Paul Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg in 1832 and showed exceptional ease in drawing very early on. At fifteen, he already published caricatures in Paris in the Journal pour laughs. His speed of invention and his sense of narration direct him towards illustrated books, a field that he transformed through the breadth of his visions. Rabelais, Balzac, Dante, Cervantes, Perrault, Milton and the Bible become coherent worlds under his pencil populated by crowds, monsters, dizzying landscapes and impossible architecture. Doré provides the drawings; specialized engravers translate them onto wood for printing, giving its contrasts international diffusion. The artist refuses yet to be limited to illustration. He painted large religious and historical compositions, exhibited landscapes inspired by Scotland, the Alps and the Pyrenees, and also practiced sculpture. His London gallery, opened in 1867, contributed to his British fame. Ecce Homo, The Condemned Christ and The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem spread immense crowds around a spiritual center often isolated by light. In the Alpine landscapes, human smallness measures the power of reliefs and clouds. Died in Paris in 1883, Doré left a gigantic corpus whose inventions continued to nourish publishing, cinema, comics and the fantastic imagination. There selection "Gustave Doré" notably compares Scène alpine and Ecce Homo. His reading favors figures.

Doré thinks like a director: a gap of light, a deep crowd or a precipice are enough to transform the text into a memorable vision.