Gustave Doré, a brilliant artist at the monastery

Tableau Paysage d’Écosse de Gustave Doré, conservé dans les collections du musée des Beaux-Arts

The Museum of Fine Arts of the Royal Monastery of Brou holds one of the most important collections of Gustave Doré. Great illustrator of the 19th century, also painter and sculptor, you certainly know his world!

A YOUNG PRODIGY, BRILLIANT AND PROLIFIC

Louis-Auguste-Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg in 1832. At the age of five, he begins to hold a pencil and illustrates his letters and schoolbooks.

At the age of eleven, his family moved to Bourg-en-Bresse, where he spent part of his schooling at the college. At thirteen, he published his first lithographs with a local printer. During this period, Gustave Doré produced numerous drawings: he captured daily life in Bourg and the region. In 1847, he moved to Paris to begin his career as an illustrator.

Gustave Doré became a sought-after caricaturist and illustrator at a very young age. His production until his death was torrential. His fame was built up through his illustrations of several works, distributed throughoutEurope: the Works of Rabelais (in 1854, he was only 22 years old!), Don Quixote by Cervantes (1863), The Holy Bible (1866), The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1861-1868).

Known worldwide as an illustrator, he is also a painter and sculptor. However, if painting takes an increasingly important place in his mind and in his work, his paintings are not recognized by critics in France. It was across the Channel and across the Atlantic that he met with success.

In 1868, the Doré Gallery opened in London. It was a triumphant reception from the Londoners! His style of painting, eclectic and still marked by romanticism It was to their taste. He even met the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria, who bought a painting from him in 1870! He also met the great masters of English watercolor, which he practiced after having discovered the wild landscapes of Scotland.

Dessin portrait de Gustave Doré — Portrait de Gustave Doré
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

A PAINTER OF HIS TIME

At the beginning of his career, Gustave Doré was inspired by a purely romantic imagination. He painted a fantasized Middle Ages, with fairies, chimeras, Gothic architecture and a chivalrous universe. Later, he drew his inspiration from the texts of the works he illustrated, sublimating them.

From his first sketches, Gustave Doré also described society and his contemporaries. He remained sensitive throughout his career to social misery. In his illustrations he represents all social classes, in his painting he expresses his sympathy for the little people.

Faithfulwitness of his time, he draws like a reporter. He made a number of sketches with emaciated characters and disheveled clothes, while creating fantastic atmospheres, dramatic chiaroscuro.

Like Victor Hugo who admired him, Gustave Doré shared with him this desire to describe his society, magnified by romanticism.

Viviane et Merlin, tableau de Gustave Doré conservé dans les collections du musée des Beaux-Arts
© Louis Houdus

HIS LEGACY IN ART

If his work has inspired great artists such as Rodin, Van Gogh or Picasso, Gustave Doré's extremely strong visuals have also left their mark on cinema, comics andanimation.

In the cinema, his universe was brought to the screen in Charles Perrault's Beauty and the Beast (1946) directed by Jean Cocteau, Oliver Twist (1948) after Charles Dickens by the Englishman David Lean or more recently in the films of the American Terry Gilliam.

Gustave Doré is also a precursor of the comic strip and animation. He even influenced the work of Walt Disney! During a trip to Europe in 1935, Walt Disney sought to create a stock of images to inspire studio production. The book of Charles Perrault's fairy tales illustrated by Gustave Doré was used for Disney's first feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and was later used for Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Since the second half of the ^twentieth century, French and European comic artists, such as Moebius, have acknowledged theinfluence of Gustave Doré on their work. Universal, it is not uncommon today to find it in animated films, video games or even some manga.

Want to know more? Discover here the digital exhibition dedicated to Gustave Doré

Illustration de Pantagruel par Gustave Doré, dans les œuvres de François Rabelais (tome second, Paris : Garnier Frères libraires éditeurs, 1873, n.p.)
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

Dessin de Gustave Doré, « Le petit chaperon rouge » dans Les contes de Perrault — Dessin de Gustave Doré « Le petit chaperon rouge » dans Les contes de Perrault (Paris : Hetzel, 1862, n.p.)
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

Dessin de Gustave Doré, « Le petit poucet » dans les contes de Perrault — Dessin de Gustave Doré « Le petit poucet » dans les contes de Perrault (Paris : Hetzel, 1862, n.p.)
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

Dessin de Gustave Doré « Le maître chat ou le chat botté » dans les contes de Perrault (Paris : Hetzel, 1862, n.p.)
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

Illustration de Gargantua par Gustave Doré, dans les œuvres e François Rabelais (tome premier, Paris : Garnier Frères libraires éditeurs, 1873, n.p.)
© Bourg-en-Bresse, musée du monastère de Brou

9 works exhibited at the Royal Monastery of Brou,
including 7 paintings and 2 sculptures plus drawings, engravings and illustrated books kept in reserve
+ more than 220 works by Gustave Doré conserved by the City of Bourg-en-Bresse