Gustave Doré and the modern biblical imagination /

A curator and historian of modern art and visual culture, Schaefer here proposes that the art of Gustave Doré (1832--83) was a major contribution to "the development of the modern biblical imagination" (p. 164). She identifies Doré's work as the most influential, best-known scriptural imagery from 1865 onward. That work has been incorporated in multiple print editions/translations of the Bible, and his paintings and prints have been exhibited in Paris, London, and Chicago, among other venues. Throughout her detailed, carefully documented text, Schaefer claims the works were immediately accessible to a general audience and captured the public's imagination in connection with historical, cultural, and theological conversations, including the quest for the historical Jesus and the biblical authority. Doré's imagery remained at the forefront of biblical illustration during the cultural shifts to secularization and to the religious liberalism and neo-orthodoxy of modernity. Embedded in the popular consciousness, Doré's images were appropriated for prayer cards and Sunday School readers and, from the 20th century onward, in new media, such as cinematic biblical epics and digital art. Schaefer promotes the significance of Doré's artwork through a copiously illustrated and documented history of print Bibles and the commercialization of Christianity in the US. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty --Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, emerita, Georgetown University