The Ascent 

This is ‘The Ascent’, a work made by the French artist Gustave Doré in the 19th century. Doré was an illustrator, and this piece exemplifies the increasing professionalization of that field in Europe during his time. Here, two figures make their way up a jagged mountain path. The image is filled with the visual codes of Romanticism: the sublime landscape, the drama of the climb, and the sense of awe before the natural world. But Doré’s images circulated in books and print media, reaching a wide audience beyond the traditional art world. These images show that as the institutions of art expanded, so too did the social and economic possibilities for artists and their art. To truly understand Doré, we might look at archival sources related to publishing, or consider the rise of mass media and visual culture in 19th-century France. Through such investigations, art history can reveal the complex social forces that shaped artistic production.