John Martin's Illustrations of Paradise Lost (1827)

In my mind, Paradise Lost and Gustave Doré's illustrations are inseparable, similar to Alice in Wonderland with John Tenniel's. It's because I experienced these books with the words and images together, as an integrated multimedia work.

So, to me, illustrations for these works by other artists almost always feel derivative and "off", rarely reaching the perfection of the original experience.

But then, John Martin's illustrations for Paradise Lost are from 1824, before Doré in 1866, so they're definitely not derivative. If anything, Doré was probably influenced by them.

John Martin brings a unique worldview and aesthetics, and it's quite striking to experience scenes from the poem in a (for me) new way. I especially like how he depicts the struggle of light and dark, and the grand panoramic scenery with scale and depth.

This post was quite a surprise. I have an old copy of Paradise Lost (illustrated by Gustave Dore) on a bookshelf next to me. (Digitized version here: http://digital.auraria.edu/AA00006467/00001) The cover of my copy is green instead of gold.

Tremendous illustrations.

This is probably just my personal bias kicking in but, to me, all of those illustrations that are in an outdoor setting, look like a view of a golf course.

These are... incredible