Let Me Try My Questions Here

[Buster]

When an print is made from an engraving, from the 1880's, did they have the capability to re-create the fine needle strokes unseen, unless up very very close? Did they normally make large prints, such as 24" X 30," or did they keep them to a smaller size? Or did they have to pretty much go with a coarser version of the original?
Buster

[Roger Bleile]

Buster,

I'm not sure I understand your question, especially "to re-create the fine needle strokes unseen."

First there are no needles used in engraving. Whether one is engraving a copper plate for printing, a silver bracelet or a shotgun, the engraver uses tools known as gravers or chisels. To familiarize yourself with the art, click on the link under my signature for the engraving glossary then surf around. That will answer many questions.

The print engravers of the late 19th century were able to work at the highest level imaginable. Look for examples of their work printed on currency of the time. They could also engrave large book plates such as the Bible Gallery and the Divine Comedy which were engraved by the artists in Gustave Dore's studio.

After a metal plate is engraved then inked for printing, it and the paper are run through a press under pressure. The ink is drawn out of the cuts onto the paper. This technique will reveal even the finest cuts of the graver on the resultant print.

CRB

[Buster]

Roger,
I have been reading this forum, looking for information about this print. The detailed work is ssssoo fine and detailed. Gustave Dore has been mentioned here, and I hoped that this would lead me to more information about what I have. It is so much larger than what I can find listed. It is an 1880 print, and it has 1884 doctor journal papers and a New England News Paper stuck behind the print to secure it in the frame.
It is of a Monk having vision and a hall below with Monks holding candles. If anyone can point me in a direction to go, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks
Buster

[Roger Bleile]

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Post a picture of the whole thing along with detail photos of sections of the print. Most prints made from engraved plates have the engraver's and artist's names in the lower corners of the print.

RB

[Buster]

Roger,
Maybe this will help identify the picture. I cannot find a name on the picture, other than G Dore, 1880....Buster

[rbaptiste]

I think it isn't an engraving by push graver but by acid

[Buster]

I am not familar with acid. I will have to find the answer to that one. Thanks. Buster.

[rbaptiste]

If you don't see some line it is a acid proceed.
You can see here the difference.

[Roger Bleile]

I agree Roland. It looks like an aquatint or possibly a mezzotint. I would have to see a much closer detail picture to know for sure.

[rbaptiste]

Yes Roger it is an aquatint. No Mezzo tinto because it isn't so clean because you start by the black to go to the white with this technic.

[Steve Ellsworth]

Gustave Dore

born Jan. 6, 1832, Strasbourg, Fr.
died Jan. 23, 1883, Paris


French printmaker, one of the most prolific and successful book illustrators of the late 19th century, whose exuberant and bizarre fantasy created vast dreamlike scenes widely emulated by Romantic academicians.

In 1847 he went to Paris and from 1848 to 1851 produced weekly lithographic caricatures for the Journal pour Rire and several albums of lithographs (1847–54). His later fame rested on his wood-engraved book illustrations. Employing more than 40 woodcutters, he produced over 90 illustrated books. Among his finest were an edition of the Oeuvres de Rabelais (1854), Les Contes drolatiques of Balzac (1855), thelarge folio Bible (1866), and the Inferno of Dante (1861).


He also painted many large compositions of a religious or historical character and had some success as a sculptor; his work in those media, however, lacks the spontaneous vivacity of his illustrations.

checked his engraving work - style is woodcut

works like this one you show look like this
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...aster_Dore.jpg

i believe you are looking at a painting done with the style of a woodcutter
numerous links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9

A Biography of Gustave Doré written by Dan Malan, author of:

"Gustave Doré-Adrift on Dreams of Splendor"

Gustave Doré (1832-83) was the most popular illustrator of all time, both in terms of number of engravings (10,000+) and number of editions (4,000+). In the forty year period from 1860-1900 a new Doré illustrated edition was published every eight days! His 238 Bible engravings were by far the most popular set of illustrations ever done, with nearly 1,000 editions. Yet Doré was much more than just an illustrator. He did over 400 oil paintings. Millions of people came to see a gallery of his paintings. He also did several hundred watercolor landscapes and dozens of works of sculpture. He did the monument to Alexandre Dumas that sits in Paris today.

Why then have so many people never heard of Gustave Doré? They may not be familiar with his name, but his engravings are everywhere, like on the cover of Time Magazine. Doré is also one of the best kept secrets in Hollywood. His engravings were used in many classic films like King Kong, Great Expectations, and The Ten Commandments, as well as many recent films like Amistat, Seven & What Dreams may Come. Doré's name may fade in and out of pop culture usage, but his art has had an enduring influence to generations of romantics and realists alike.

Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg in January 1832. He was the ultimate child prodigy. His earliest dated drawings were from the age of five. The stories of his early artistic prowess are legendary. By the age of 12 he was carving his own lithographic stones, making sets of engravings with stories to go with them. The great French illustrator J. J.Grandville met Gustave and predicted great artistic success. But no one could have dreamed just how quickly that success would come.

Doré exploded onto the Parisian art scene at the age of 15, even though he was short and looked about ten years old. The Doré family visited Paris for the first time when Gustave was 15 and he fell in love with that capital of artistic sophistication. One day they went by a publishing company, with a set of engravings displayed in the window. Gustave immediately hatched a plan. The next morning he feigned illness and told the family to go on without him. He quickly made several sketches and headed for that publishing company. He walked in the front door, found the office of the publisher Charles Philipon, and barged right in. He plopped his drawings down on Philipon's desk and exclaimed, "This is how that set of illustrations should be done." Philipon was amused at Gustave's antics, but when he looked down at the drawings he almost cried. He called several other people into his office. No one could believe that little boy had actually done the drawings. So they asked him to do some more drawings right there. He did additional drawings in literally seconds. A collective gasp went up from the group. At this point Philipon refused to let Gustave leave his office. They tracked down Gustave's father and brought him to Philipon. They talked him into signing a lucrative contract for Gustave on the spot. Since the Dorés were headed back home, little Gustave moved in with Monsieur Philipon.

By the age of 16, Gustave Doré was the highest paid illustrator in France, making more per page than Honore Daumier made at the height of his career. The timing of it all was almost supernatural. Philipon was just launching a new humor weekly, Journal pour Rire. Doré, the "Boy Genius" (as Theophile Gautier dubbed him) was the featured artist. But even prior to that, Philipon published Doré's first book when he was just 15. It was a satire entitled The Labours of Hercules. The 1847 book is now extremely rare. The book was entirely by Gustave, who wrote the text, did the drawings & engraved them all on stone. Little Gustave became the toast of Paris.

By the way, did I mention that he never had an art lesson in his entire life?

As a teenager, Doré did over 2,000 satirical caricature engravings. But he longed for more. In 1854, he launched out into the field of literary engravings, with sets for Rabelais and Balzac. During the 1850s he did dozens of literary works, but once again he longed for more. Then he took a step almost as bold as the steps he took in 1847 into Philipon's office. By this time Doré was with the leading French publisher Hachette. Doré told Louis Hachette he wanted to do the ultimate art book, a giant literary folio of Dante's Inferno. Up to this time no Doré book had retailed for more than 15 French Francs. The proposed Inferno volume would sell for 100 Francs. Hachette turned him down, saying no one would pay that much. Doré said he would pay for the entire edition. Hachette was listed as the publisher but was actually just the printer. But again Hachette cautioned Doré to only have a hundred copies bound, so as not to waste all that money on binding. Doré did 76 full-page folio engravngs for the elephant folio edition. It came out in early 1861. A couple weeks later, Doré received a famous telegram from Hachette. "Success! Come quickly! I am an ass!" Far from selling 100 copies, there have now been over 200 editions of that set of engravings. The horror genre as we know it today has two major sources - the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and the engravings of Doré for Dante's Inferno. The early 1860s solidified Doré's position as France's foremost illustrator.

A series of childrens' classics folios followed, from Don Quixote to Baron Munchausen to Fairy Tales. But Doré was still relatively unknown outside of France. All that would change in December of 1865. In a three year period, the English-speaking world saw twenty Doré folios containing over 2000 engravings. There were fears he would kill himself from overwork. For nearly twenty years Doré would be literally the most famous artist in the world. It was often said that you c ould find Doré folios in every English-speaking home where they could spell the word "art."

But we are getting ahead of our story. In December of 1865, four Doré folios were published in England. Shortly thereafter they began a serial of the Doré Bible, so famous it's mentioned on page 46 of Tom Sawyer. British commissions soon followed of Milton and Tennyson. The main British publisher was Cassell, but by the late 1860s Doré folios were published in dozens of languages.

Doré greatly benefitted from another coincidence. It was at this time that electrotypes came into widespread use, allowing unlimited reproduction of engravings thru the use of molds. Foreign publishers only needed electrotypes of Doré's engravings from his original French publishers.

Doré moved into the field of Fine Arts in the late 1860s, but first let us finish up with his folios. After the Franco-Prussian War, Doré became a much more serious artist. The year 1872 saw his great social commentary folio masterpiece, London, a Pilgrimage, hailed by everyone from Vincent van Gogh to Lord Kenneth Clark.

Doré continued to produce a steady flow of folios in the 1870s, but they became more diverse, from a travel folio of Spain to a historical folio of The Crusades to literary classics of Rabelais, Ariosto, and The Ancient Mariner.

In 1882, Doré took on his only U.S. commission ever for Poe's The Raven. Doré died in early 1883, just as he was finishing the Raven engravings. He had just turned 51.

In the late 1860s, Doré was restless again. During the course of his entire artistic life, he moved into a new field about every five years. Doré's greatest disappointment in France was the fine art establishment's refusal to accept him as a painter. Doré admittedly had difficulties with color shading. Some have conjectured that he was actually color-blind. French artists were afraid he would come to dominate their field as he had illustration. But Doré found in England the full artistic respect he so sought. For the last 15 years of his life, Doré was almost more British than French.

In 1867 a gallery was opened in London to display Doré's paintings. The Doré Gallery (New Bond Street) was open continuously in London for 25 years and then it toured the U.S. The British proprietors of the The Doré Gallery commissioned him to do a large religious painting, similar to one of his Bible engravings. That began a series of enormous religious canvasses for which he became world-famous. They became known as the greatest collection of religious paintings in the world. The French would say, "But his paintings are really just enormous illustrations," and the British would reply, "So what?"

Doré's final vindication as a painter came in 1896 in Chicago, long after his death. That was the westernmost stop of the Doré Gallery. The common folks in the midwest of the U.S. dearly loved Doré and proceeded to break every attendance record at the Art Institute of Chicago. Daily attendance exceeded 16,000 and on the final day, over 4,000 people came thru the turnstyles in the final HOUR !!! In eight months 1.5 million people came to see the Doré exhibition. To put that in perspective, the previous record for attendance at any U.S. art museum for an entire year had been 600,000.

Doré has often been called the last of the Romantics. In the 1870s, Doré took up watercolor landscapes, particularly in the Alps and in Scotland.

Then in the late 1870s, he turned to sculpture. He found the French more receptive to his sculpture (no problems with coloring). But it was again after his death that he was really accepted. Doré died just as he was finishing his monument to his good friend Alexandre Dumas. No record can be found of a single negative comment by any French art critic concerning the Dumas monument. Many of them had felt that success came too easily to Doré, that he had not paid his dues. Instead Doré paid his dues after he was successful and he died a broken man, even though millions of fan around the world adored his art.

Vincent van Gogh referred to Doré as an "Artist of the People" because Doré took his art directed to the masses thru his literary folios. Now all of Doré's art is in the public domain and it is reprinted through commercial printing all over the world. Doré's sets of engravings are etched into the memory of society's collective subconscious. That is his true legacy.

enjoy
sle

[Fred Marrinan]

thanks Steve enjoyed read about Dore-Fred