sandr037

When you look at something you are often looking through   or around something else; a window, a door, under a tree, or through your glasses (my constant view frame). People also like to frame pictures and objects; it makes the picture more focused, and the object more important in some way. Paintings and photographs often use a frame within the image itself: for instance the view of King Charles Street, Whitehall, London (top, above) or the Tower Bridge (both from the Picture Book of London published by Country Life in 1951). Painters have always played with framing devices, using some foreground object to give scale and frame the view. The painting above by Gustav Bauernfeind called, At the Entrance to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem , is a straight forward “through the arch” approach, mirroring the photograph at the top of the page.  Of course conveniently located arches are not always available, so the usual fallback tactic is the side of a building, or looking out from under...

In 1832 Gustave Dore was born to a family of the professional class in the Alsace region bordering what soon became Germany. He began drawing from a very young age, and showed facility and speed. In Paris with his parents, Dore, age 15, impressed a publisher with his ability, and was offered a 3 year contract to illustrate magazines. At the amazingly young age of 17 Dore became the family breadwinner, and a Paris celebrity. The combination of need and fame drove him to produce work at a phenomenal rate; a rate that he kept up until his untimely death at age 51. Although lacking formal artistic training Dore observed and copied everything he could find in Paris, from the statues in the Louvre to the crowds in the streets. At first he drew the lithographs himself, but with fame came more and more commissions, and he took to designing the illustrations which were then finished in wood cut by others.   He illustrated many books of the time, but he is best remembered for his illustrati...