Book

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Doré produced illustrations for an edition of Atala, written by the French writer François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). First published in 1801, the novella was inspired by his travels in North America whilst in exile during the French Revolution.

The text tells the story of a European-American woman, Atala, who falls in love with a Native American man. The text reflects the author’s imperialist and racist views, which were commonplace at the time in the West.

Doré’s illustration on this page had a direct influence on O’Brien’s vision for King Kong and Harryhausen’s own work. This is Harryhausen’s own copy of the publication.

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Willis O’Brien would often show Doré’s illustrations to members of the production team in order to communicate the effect he required. Harryhausen said of Doré that ‘His imagination and his talent for dramatic composition is typified by his unique way of focusing light onto the centre of the picture, by creating a dark foreground and background and highlighting the central action. The effect is almost cinematic. He favoured the use of a dark foreground, medium plane and very light backgrounds to help create a sense of depth. Sometimes his pictures look almost like a single frame from an epic film.’