File talk:GustaveDoreParadiseLostSatanProfile.jpg
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"Mr. Jerrold reports a discussion between Dore and Theophile Gautier, in which the roles of artist and man of letters are strangely reversed. "Gautier and Dore," he says, "disagreed fundamentally on the aims and methods of art. Gautier loved correctness, perfect form--the technique, in short, of art; whereas Dore contended that art which said nothing, which conveyed no idea, albeit perfect in form and color, missed the highest quality and raison d'etre of art." What is plain from this is, that Gautier was an artist and cared first of all for art, while Dore was never an artist, properly speaking, at all, and never understood the artist's passion for perfection. To Dore, what was necessary was to express himself anyhow--who cared if the style was defective, the drawing bad, the color crude? The idea was the thing. His admirers can defend him only on this ground, and they adopt of necessity the Philistine point of view. The artists of Dore's time and country were very clear in their opinion. "The painters," says Mr. Jerrold, "said he could not paint.""
"The sculptors admitted that he had ideas in his groups, but he was not sculpturesque. His friends protest against this judgment, and attribute it, ad nauseam, to "malevolence" and "envy." What if his technique was less brilliant than that of Hals, they say; what if his shadows are less transparent than those of Rembrandt (and they will make no meaner comparison)? He is "teeming with noble thoughts," and these will put his work "on a level with the masterpieces of the Italian masters of the sixteenth century." It is the conception, the creation--not the perfect painting of legs and arms and heads, the harmonious grouping, the happy and delicate combination of color--by which the observer is held spell bound. All these qualities, which his admirers grudgingly admit that Dore had not, are classed as "mere dexterity," and are not considered worth a second thought." http://biography.edigg.com/Gustave_Dore.shtml
http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/skilton/illustr/Dore126.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Th%C3%A9ophile_Gautier.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Singing_Boy_with_a_Flute_WGA.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_159.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raphael_Saint_Michael_and_the_Dragon.jpg
cybrarian's note: If I could write like that, I would. "The idea is the thing." I still haven't figured out the "raison d'etre of art" but I know what she likes and it ain't occult or black and white. We have more magic in our cell phones than our ancestors ever dreamed about.
