Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Theatrical Esther

Esther before the king from the Bible illustrated by Paul Gustave Doré (1832–1883).

For Doré it was important be historical as exact as possible. So he drew a kind of exotic palace and costumes which could pass as Persian. But if you look at how theatrically Esther is losing her consciousness, it could only be on a stage. So it’s theatre in a good setting what Doré is showing.
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2 comments:

  1. Nicjor79July 30, 2009 at 8:51 AM

    I had never seen this work before but the story of Esther seems like a natural choice for Doré, as most of his work was very theatrical.

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  2. JudyJuly 31, 2009 at 12:52 AM

    Doré illustrated the whole Bible and so there are a lot of images. A good resource is:
    http://catholic-resources.org/Art/Dore-OT.htm

    Interesting is also that Doré produced mass products, a kind of "pre comics". Some art historians call him even the "industrialized romantican".
    But I like his art, maybe because of that.

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