The Message Is Seen

Chapter 4 moves from France to England, where the growth of fervent evangelical Protestantism and a massive publishing industry resulted in an exponential increase in the reproduction and adaptation of Doré’s imagery. At the heart of this chapter are the monumental religious works produced for the Doré Gallery, established in London in 1868. By relying on consistent compositional structure and highly legible narratives, Doré’s biblical paintings cohere to evangelical principles and functioned counterdiscursively to the visual cultures of spectacle that shaped much of Victorian experience. While French audiences derided Doré’s efforts at painting, British viewers eagerly consumed these works, which were offered in the heart of the commercial art district and provided wholesome entertainment that counterbalanced the more suspect spectacles of nearby neighborhoods. This was a context in which commercialism and religious experience overlapped and which became, as one commentator put it, “where the godly take their children.”