Category: Gustav Doré

Righteous Determination Forges a Pathway to God’s Kingdom

Our environment is filled with things that test our character. Sometimes, we successfully overcome these things, and other times, we fall short and fail. Yet failure isn’t necessarily the end of the road; through determination, we can still find ourselves favorable to God. We continue our story of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Raphael has finished…


The Natural, Benevolent State of Creativity

John Milton was blind by the time he wrote “Paradise Lost” in 1667. Throughout the text, he occasionally calls out to a “Heav’nly Muse” to inspire him to tell the story of human sin, as he does at the beginning of the book. He opens Book VII with a call to the Heavenly Muse who…


Formulating Questions: Archangel Raphael Converses with Adam and Eve

In a world that rewards being right, it is very difficult to not pursue and parrot answers. We even take pride in being right, in having the “right” answer. Some of us even use what we believe to be right to bully and beat those we think are wrong: After all, why would we adopt…


The Power of Our Inner Righteousness: Satan Concedes to Heaven’s Might

Evil things are frightening to many of us unless we are experiencing them from a distance. Sometimes it can be difficult to have the confidence to turn toward and confront evil. How might we truly identify evil and confront it with confidence? Deceptive Satan Inspires Discord In the last article of this series, we followed…


Searching for Evil Within Ourselves: God’s Angels Look for Satan in the Garden of Eden

We continue to follow Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Gustav Doré’s accompanying illustrations. In the last part of our series, Milton’s Satan came upon God’s creation: two human beings, Adam and Eve, enjoying the fruits of paradise. The archangel Uriel, who unwittingly pointed out Earth to a disguised Satan, hurries to the archangel Gabriel to warn…


The Divine Nature of Human Beings: Milton’s Satan in Awe

Our series “Illustrious Ideas and Illustrations: The Imagery of Gustav Doré” has shown the evil ways of Satan as he has vowed to take revenge on God. We’ve seen in our last article, that after having a difficult internal struggle in which he determinedly decides to continue defying God, Satan comes upon the paradise of…


The Absence of Humility and Gratitude: Milton’s Satan in Torment

Throughout our series “Illustrious ideas and illustrations: The imagery of Gustav Doré,” we’ve had the opportunity to take a deep look at how Milton saw Satan. Satan, the father of Sin and Death, has been shown as synonymous with pride, vanity, deception, and revenge.  There’s still more to understand about Milton’s conception of Satan. Continuing…


Lies Masquerading as Truth: Milton’s Satan Heads to Earth

In the last part of our extensive series “Illustrious Ideas and Illustrations: The Imagery of Gustav Doré,” we saw Satan confront his children, Sin and Death, at the gates of Hell as told by John Milton in his epic poem “Paradise Lost.” Sin and Death agree to let Satan pass out of the gates of…


When Unchecked Evil Becomes the Object of Admiration

This series focuses on the art of Gustav Doré and started by looking at his illustrations for John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem “Paradise Lost.” In this next article, Satan has just finished rallying the rebel angels after they fell to hell. He calls out to them, shames them, and reinvigorates their passion to resist God. At…


Illustrious Ideas and Illustrations: The Imagery of Gustav Doré

John Milton began his tragic poem “Paradise Lost” by telling us of a great war in heaven. Wanting to rule heaven, Satan gathered a group of rebel angels to oppose God. Thus, Satan’s pride initiated a divine war. Of course, Satan and the angels who sided with him lost the war and were cast from…