The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-01-01
/, GUSTAVE DORE.


GustaYe Dore is nearly fifty years
OF age, and looks about thirty-fve.
VI medium stature, be has the fame
off az acrobat and che head of poet.
10 see him in the street you would
feel inclined to give him q penny,
Tor he ls the worst dressed man in
Paris, the scape-goat Of his tailor,
who lnHiots upon him all his misfits.
Dore passes his life in drawing and
painting. sleeping or dancing about
With fiddle i'll his hand. In society,
when ne is not mapping or 6ddlipg,
ne ls.constantly making sketches. His
fertility is prodigious. and on that
account bis brother-artists do not look
upon him with favorable eye. A
statisticisn has calculated that Dore's
pictures and drawings, il laid fat, side
Dy side, would suffice to cover the
railway track from Paris to Lyons.
He attaches no importance to his
work, and although in business trans.
actions, a an of singular scuteness.
in private life he is the most "giving"
OF artists. When be Was in Switzer.
land fe years ago he used to give
his water colors away right and left
to his Deighbors at the table d'hote.
At dinner st Madame KS the other
day, an English lady begged Dore to
write his name on slip of paper, 90
that she might possess his illustlious
autograph.
"Oh! madame, l will give you
something better than mere sigma
ture."
And suiting toe action TO the word,
he took of his black necktie, asked
for bit of fake-poMder, mixed it
with water, and, with a match, he
painted on the neoktie q gay pro-
oessiOn OF cupids Offering a necktie
to lady, signed it 'Gustave Dore,"
and handed it CALAMITY to his fair
admirer.
Gustave Dore's talent is universal.
he ia painter, engraver, designer,
sculptor and water-color painter. In
painting ne does nearly everything
with ,the brush, and fixes the posi-
ton of the figures with the 5arest
possible indications incharooal. His
ocular memory is astonishing. In
his studio he has no documents, no
sketches, no models. Recently be
made replica of bis great picture
of Christ leaving the pl@torium, en-
tirely from memory. When he was
doing his great book on London and
visiting all the dens of Whitechapel
and Mapping, he never made
sketches on the spot, but only at
night when be returned to his hotel.
Unlike most OF the artists of the day,
Gustave Dore has no taste for brio.
s-brac and 6i6eLots. His studio,
formerly a riding-school, is q scene
OF understandable disorder, full OF i'm
mense scadolding, huge csnvasses,,
imme So palettss. such as Hercules
might have used had be taken to
painting, oolors and brushes all peIl
nell. piles of drawings. statues,
modelling.clay, etchings. epgrav.
ines, wood-cuts. and in the midst a
piano, and on the piano q strsdivar-
ius. When he does venture to buy
! 6G5Ijots ne chooses the most abomina-
bic rubbish, :ar instance Bohemian
glass OF the most modern manutac-
sure
Lately Dore has bad g craze for
sculpture, and all the great bronz.
foundries are anxious to buy his
models. The colossal vase. The
Epopee of Bacohus, which was ex.
hibited at the Universal Exhibition
OF 1878, is now being cast at the
artists own expense.
For the past seven years Dore has
been working at the illustration OF
Shakespeare, which he is anxious to
make bis masterpiece Of illustration.
Thinks to bis knowledge OF German
he was born a. Strasbarg-he has
been able to get very near to Shake
spesre and to comprehend him as few
Frenchmen haze done. To give an
idea OF the care be is taking over the
work. ne says he has spent over
$50. 600 in essays and plates, which
be has for the most part rejected as
unsatisfactory. An American and
an English publisher are rivals for
the possession OF this work, which
will not be iaisned for year or two
to come.
No Frenchman has been decorated
with more foreign orders OF ohivalry,
b0t ne never wears any decoration
except the Legion of Honor, and no
triumph abroad, however great, gives
him tue same Joy as the smallest suc-
GEES Won at Paris.-Bosto9a Courier.