The illustrations for ''La Grande Bible de Tours'' are a series of 241

wood-engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...

s, designed by the French artist, printmaker, and illustrator

Gustave Doré Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, as a printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravin ...

(1832–1883) for a new deluxe edition of the 1843 French translation of the

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, popularly known as the ''Bible de Tours''. ''La Grande Bible de Tours'', issued in 1866, was a large folio ("grand in folio") edition published in two volumes simultaneously by

Mame MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve ...

Tours, France Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metrop ...

and by Cassell & Company in the United Kingdom in 1866. The French translation known as the ''Bible de Tours'' had originally been published in 1843 and was done by Jean Jacques Bourassé (1813–1872) and Pierre Désiré Janvier (1817–1888). The illustrations were immensely successful and have been reproduced countless times worldwide, influencing the visual arts and popular culture in ways difficult to measure. The series comprises 139 plates depicting scenes from the Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and 81 from the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

Background

Doré's artistic reasons for undertaking the Bible project are outlined by his biographer,

Joanna Richardson Joanna Leah Richardson (8 August 1925 – 7 March 2008) was an English writer, translator and journalist. She wrote 21 biographies of literary writers and poets and was awarded the Prix Goncourt de la Biographie in 1989. Richardson also contribu ...

It offered him an almost endless series of intensely dramatic events. His visions of the looming tower of Babel, the plague of darkness in Egypt, the death of Samson, Isaiah's vision of the destruction of Babylon; these vast, forbidding scenes, heavy with doom, remind one of the visions of John Martin. They also reveal many elements by now familiar in Doré's work: the mountain scenes, the lurid skies, the complicated battles, the almost unremitting brutalism. Doré's illustrations of the Old Testament remind us, above all, of the God of Wrath: of massacres and murders, decapitations and avenging angels. There is, too, a period element: the angels are Victorian angels, full of sentiment; the women are, again, keepsake women, the children are Victorian children: sentimental or wise beyond their years.Joanna Richardson, ''Gustave Doré'' (London: Cassell, 1980), pp. 72–73.

The illustrations

The Old Testament

Deuterocanonical / Apocrypha

The New Testament

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gustave Dore's illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours Prints based on the Bible Biblical art Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve Cultural depictions of David Cultural depictions of Moses Judith in art Prints depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus Annunciation in Christian art Flight into Egypt in art John the Baptist in art Paul the Apostle in art 19th-century prints Catholic engraving Grande Bible de Tours