One of the highlights of spring is enjoying the sakura

Or Japanese cherry blossoms in the centre of Stockholm.

The sakura speak to us of

What is possible

And of petalled beauty

That lasts only a short time,

Blooming without holding back

And reminding us that life is like the sakura:

Fleeting, fragile, fabulous.

For more beauty, please visit: Our World.

And don’t forget: Skywatch.

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) is today known almost exclusively as a print-maker and illustrator of many books, although you may stumble across an occasional watercolour landscape or huge canvas of his, and he was a sculptor too. Some of his landscapes are outstanding, but produced during the era of Impressionism have been cast aside by history. I here consider some of his narrative oil paintings, for if anyone understood narrative art, it should surely be such a prolific and successful illustrator.

Doré was precocious child, and started his career as a caricaturist for a newspaper at the age of 15. By the 1850s his illustrations were being commissioned by major publishers in both France and Britain, including a new illustrated English Bible. Here are two prints from that work, which was published in 1866.

Gustave Doré (1832–1883), Judith and Holofernes (1866), print from illustrated edition of the Bible.

The first shows…