Doré's Illustrations for Don Quixote

Gustave Doré

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486243009
• eBook ISBN: 9780486136943
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Artist Monographs

"His Don Quixote … from its first to its last page [is] a marvel of imagination, poetry, sentiment, and sarcasm. . . . People still speak of it only as 'Doré's Don Quixote'." — Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré
Doré himself had something of Quixote's chivalry and spent an arduous life drafting impossible dreams; he knew fame as well as pain, disillusionment, and failure. At age 30 he was ready for Quixote and prepared to realize his dream of illustrating the world's great books.
Doré never became the painter he yearned to be, but he came very close to realizing his desired intimacy with the classics. His sympathy with Cervantes' satire was so close that, of the numerous Quixote interpretations by many outstanding artists, Doré's has become the standard. The French translation of Cervantes that Doré illustrated is forgotten; here is the memorable remnant of that work — all 120 full-page plates, plus a selection of 70 characteristic headpiece and tailpiece vignettes.
As can be seen in the backgrounds, Doré was ready professionally as well as emotionally for Quixote. He had traveled through Spain preparing an earlier work, and his graphic memory was as strong and indelible as that of another great Quixote interpreter, Picasso. From Sancho's village through Spanish hills and dry plateaus, in the Pyrenees and by the sea, in rural castles and Barcelona luxury, Doré illuminated the seventeenth-century setting with a nineteenth-century acquaintance with the scene. Doré was also a careful student of Renaissance costume and architecture; his minutiae, so copious, are invariably correct.
Captions written especially for this edition describe the action with reference to the original Spanish text, capturing high points of the story. But of course Doré conveys it all in a picture: the famous windmill charge, traversing the Sierra Morena, battling the Knight of the White Moon, visions of giants, dragons, flaming lakes, and damsels, the Dulcinea never found, all in full-page wood engravings. Doré's marvelous penchant for ghostly effects in panoramic landscapes and seascapes finds large scope here, carefully engraved by one of the best of his longtime studio engravers, H. Pisano.
Doré's Man of la Mancha glows with the artist's own enchantment and humor. Artists and illustration aficionados will add this royalty-free volume to other Dover editions of Doré's works — art he created to stand with great literature that now stands alone. Doré's Quixote indeed stands alone, unique among the knights and graphic castles in Spain.

Don Quixote

ABOVE: Don Quixote neglects his estate and thinks of nothing but knightly deeds (I, 1). BELOW: The Don pleads with the innkeeper to dub him a knight the next day (I, 3).

The Don on his first sally forth (I, 2).

On the eve of his knighthood, the Don performs a vigil in the innyard (1, 3).

The Don threatens the peasant who was whipping the shepherd boy (1, 4).

The merchants of Toledo look on as one of their mule drivers beats Don Quixote (I, 4).

After his beating, the Don calls for his ideal lady, Dulcinea del Toboso (I, 5).

A plowman from his own village brings him home (1, 5).

ABOVE: The battered Don arrives home (1, 5). BELOW: Don Quixote persuades Sancho Panza to become his squire (1, 7).

He promises to make Sancho the governor of some conquered island (1, 7).

Sancho and the Don set out on their joint adventures (1, 7).

The attack on the windmill (1, 8).

Sancho comes to Don Quixote’s aid (1, 8).

ABOVE: The attack on the coach and the Benedictine monks (1, 8). BELOW: The battle at the coach between the Don and the Biscayan (1, 9).

Sancho and the Don with the goatherds (1, 11).

ABOVE: The Don rides off with the goatherds and others to the funeral of the spurned lover Gristóstomo (1, 13). BELOW: At the funeral (1, 14).

Sancho and the Don refresh themselves at a brook (1, 15).

The fight against the muleteers from Yanguas (1, 15).

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Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PUBLISHER’S NOTE
• Don Quixote