I'm Alive

Just a quick pot to confirm that I shall continue to update this blog. I am also working on a website, which I will post a link to soon.

Expect posts on Richard Doyle and Harry Clarke in the near future.

Gustave Dore's 'Droll Stories' illustrations

'Without doubt the best work ever done by Gustave Dore was that for the Contes Drolatiques,' declares a New York Times article of January 24, 1883, looking back on all of Gustave Dore's work. 'We will place next the wood-cuts for Rabelais followed by the great series of drawings for Dante's Inferno.'

That one of Dore's earliest sets of illustrations - his only great publication before this was Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1854 - is considered his best work by the New York Times critic (I am unable to find the name of the writer of the article) suggests that certain qualities may have been lost in his later work. Indeed, as Dore became more and more determined to be appreciated as an artist rather than an illustrator his work seems to have lost some of its charm, though there is no doubt that his draughtsmanship and imagination, qualities for which he is most admired, remained right up to the very end.

His illustrations for Balzac's Droll Stories are the most gothic of all of Dore's work. The full-page illustrations that are not dominated by the grotesque main characters feature moody skylines framed with ridiculously tall spires and dark, foreboding fortresses, while gallows, most of them put to use, are dotted over the land down below. The twisted medieval city is Dore's expressionist vision of Strasbourg, a place with which he was very familiar; he passed the cathedral every day on the way to school. I'm strongly reminded of the villages in Der Golem and Faust.

There is a tremendous amount of physical comedy juxtaposed with the extravagant horror. One of my favorite illustrations shows hundreds of bodies hanging from gallows, with ravens setting to work on them so eagerly that they lift some of the bodies, some uprooting the gallows as they do so. Another shows a young lover, in mid woo, being sliced in two by a rival for the object of his affections. Dore's boisterous vulgarity - which he represses in much of his later work - has never been more at home!

The character designs are wildly imaginative. Filling one or two full-page illustrations and quite a few vignettes are swarms of rotund monks (refugees from Dore's Rabelais illustrations) who specialize in falling over in comical fashion. There are also a number of characters who stay in their armor - helmets and all - all the time, feasting, reading and, indeed, sleeping with maidens with the stuff on. The only characters that disappoint are the beautiful women - as is always the case, they are little more than stock archetypes. Admittedly, though, they are more interesting than the damsels in distress featured in his later Perrault fairy tale illustrations, and they are surrounded by such an interesting cast of characters that it doesn't really matter - the diminutive servant carrying his mistress' ridiculously long train is a nice touch.

The highlight of all the illustrations, though, are the full-page illustrations dedicated entirely to the grotesque faces of the main characters. It is here that Dore proves himself, more even than in his cartoons for the Journal Pour Rire, as a master of the grotesque. In no other publication does Dore pay such close attention to facial features.

What interests me about the faces in the illustrations is the sheer variety. They do not appear to be constructed in as regimented a manner as most artists plan out a facial drawing (eg. Leonardo, who divides the face, however deformed, into planes). Possibly this is a side-effect of any lack of formal art training on Dore's part, but, in this instance, it has a positive effect, allowing the faces to seem at times impossibly twisted and deformed. Some of them even appear to be disintegrating before our very eyes.

Here are all twelve full-page grotesque faces from Dore's Balzac illustrations.

The Cartoonists

I recently went to the opening night of The Cartoonists, an annual show at Chris Beetles in London. Alas, there is no Gerald Scarfe and no Steve Bell, but there is Ronald Searle, Peter Brookes, Giles, Tony Husband and many others, as well as old greats H. M. Bateman and W. Heath Robinson.

I've been a fan of Peter Brookes ever since I was eight and saw his cartoon of Margaret Thatcher as the Rabid Old Bat (Federalis Anathema), part of the Nature Notes series. I wrote twice to him, sending him some of my own drawings, and he replied, encouraging me to continue drawing, and even sending me a sketch of Dan Blair (from another wonderful series of cartoons, based on Dan Dare, with Tony Blair as Dan Dare and William Hague as the Mekon, with his enormous bald head). Nature Notes is still going on, appearing every week in The Times and exhibited every two years at the Chris Beetles Gallery.

Movement and Composition in the Dore Dante Illustrations

Movement is one of the things I find the most difficult to suggest in a drawing, for the (possibly rather obvious) reason that the work is a static image. I've recently been looking at composition in Dore's illustrations, in particular for Dante's Inferno, in an attempt to figure out how the 19th century illustrator suggested movement in images that, because of their medium and manner of depiction, were heavily detailed.

A dissatisfaction with the engravings made from his drawings for early projects such as Gargantua and Pantagruel and Contes Drolatiques led Dore to train his own team of engravers. Of course, his own draughtsmanship improved over time as well. But I feel that many of his later illustrations lose some of their motion, as well as their energetic quality, precisely because they are more polished and finished than his earlier works. Despite this, several methods appear to be used in the illustrations intended to depict movement. In this post several illustrations from Dante's Inferno will be the subject of analysis.

The illustration seems almost to be split into two halves: the furies in the top half, and Dante and Virgil in the lower half. The two seem almost not to be completely connected, perhaps because the shape of the rock 'tower' in the background does not extend above the two poets. Only Virgil's raised hand, pointing to the furies, connects the two; the foot of the lowest fury disappears behind Virgil's hand. Perhaps in order not to draw attention to this overlap, the leg of the fury is somewhat faded, suggesting that the three flying figures to recede into the background.

But how far? At first glance the furies seem to be more or less the same size as Dante and Virgil (ie human-sized), but the manner in which they fade into the background, and the extent to which Virgil's pointing arm is foreshortened, suggest that they are further back than initially was apparent - I don't think this was deliberate; as I mentioned before, this particular illustration almost seems to be two compositions stuck together rather awkwardly. To give Dore the benefit of the doubt, we could argue that this was intended to suggest the erratic movement of the flight of the furies, bobbing up and down.

There is, however, a certain amount of movement here. First, the furies' bodies are tilted in one direction. Interestingly they move from right to left; it is generally thought that a composition that moves from left to right suggests faster movement, and perhaps progress (except in countries where writing moves from right to left; the two are related). Again, the decision that the Furies move in this direction may have been a conscious one, suggesting a certain amount of resistance to their clumsy, inelegant movements.

Second, and perhaps the more successful element of the image at conveying movement, is the mist in the background. Wisps of smoke are parallel to the furies, as though to speed along to their movement. Dore is here more successful at suggesting the movement within the group of figures rather than their journey; the detail of the wings causes them to appear static rather than flapping, but the angle and twist of the three figures suggests their writhing movement very well. It is because of this quality that this engraving remains among my favorite of Dore's Dante illustrations.

Note that this engraver (who has signed the illustration 'E. Sotain') has used less detail in an illustration depicting the punishment of the sorcerer, whose head is twisted around by malicious demons. Possibly for this reason, it seems to have been easier to convey movement in this composition, but there is a less finished look to the composition in comparison to many of the other illustrations in this set. Is movement therefore in expense to detail depicting texture, light and shadow? I don't know for sure, but there is undoubtedly more movement here than in the illustration of the furies.

Everything in the composition, save for the rock, forming the ground and the formation on the left, is in motion. As before, there is movement in the smoke in the background, adding chaos to the scene. The twisting, undulating shape of the smoke surrounding the sorcerer suggests that it is moving in a manner suggesting writhing snakes.

In the figures movement is suggested by shapes, lines and angles. The demons' forks' handles help to suggest the force applied, bowing as they lift the sorcerer, whose raised arm allows the curve of the topmost fork to be followed through into the line of his body. The twisting bodies of the demons also suggest the physical tension in the scene.

The illustration of sinners being chased by dogs through a gnarled forest is another good one for movement. Aside from the obvious factor of the running figures, I think movement is also suggested by the shape and angle of the trees; if they stood up straight, they would not complement the movement and speed of the running figures quite so well.

The movement in this illustration is suggested not only be the twist of the figures but by their position within the composition. The light falling on the figures causes a diagonal 'strip' to be highlighted across the composition. This is framed by curves formed in the foreground (the rocks in a darker shade) and in the background (the cliff over which the snakes spill). If this image were composed only of abstract light and dark shapes I think there would still be movement because of the shape and curve of these forms.

In this illustration, there is still contrast between light and shadow, but it does not produce overall shapes within the composition as distinctly as the previous illustration. However, this is successful at suggesting an atmosphere of complete chaos - movement is all over the place. Areas of concentrated shadow serve to pick out a few focal points, but they do not complement the movement.

Where Dore proves himself to be the most skilled is at drawing the human form; he is able to twist it into all sorts of forms to suggest force, strength and movement. It still amazes me (and very jealous) to learn that he never had any art training, and never drew from life. The theatrical manner in which many of the illustrations are lit often produces curving shapes of light and dark that complement the movement within a composition, whether sweeping, twisting or writhing.

Some Shameless Self-Publicity...

I forgot to mention From Book to Book, John McDowall and Chris Taylor's exhibition in Leeds City Art Gallery that began on March 6th and continues until April 20th. The books exhibited were made in response to books themselves. My book, 15 Uses for a Book (for dummies) is one of the books on display. I'll post something about 15 Uses a little later.