Art, Symbol & Imagination
Waters Find Their Courses
Torrents descend between immense rock faces beneath radiating light. Foaming streams converge in the lower foreground while dark vertical crags hold the scene apart. The caption quotes the movement of wave after wave during creation in Book VII. Doré gives the forming landscape its own energetic action without placing a human observer at the centre. The bright streams read as moving lines against the dense stone, while their convergence suggests a world acquiring routes and levels. The print makes ordering visible through the relation between flowing water and newly articulated ground.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "Waters Find Their Courses" [editorial title]. In Paradise Lost: Illustrated by Gustave Doré, John Milton; illustrated by Gustave Doré; edited by Henry C. Walsh. Undated John W. Lovell Company edition; exact publication year unverified, undated edition, John W. Lovell Company. Source scan leaf 207. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/milton-dore-206
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Original source design and caption inspected; composition retained with scan margins trimmed. No reconstructed or recoloured details.
Sources
From the book
Paradise Lost: Illustrated by Gustave DoréJohn Milton; illustrated by Gustave Doré; edited by Henry C. WalshUndated editionMore from this book
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Cite this illustration
Gustave Doré (design). Waters Find Their Courses. Paradise Lost: Illustrated by Gustave Doré. Scan leaf 207. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/milton-dore-206