Illustrations To Dante S Inferno

These 135 fantastic scenes depict the passion and grandeur of Dante's masterpiece — from the depths of hell onto the mountain of purgatory and up to the empyrean realms of paradise.

Rachel Owen's hauntingly beautiful illustrations for Dante's Inferno take a radically new approach to representing the world of Dante's famous poem. The images combine the artist's deep cultural and historical understanding of 'The Divine Comedy' and its artistic legacy with her unique talent for collage and printmaking. These illustrations, casting the viewer as a first-person pilgrim through the underworld, prompt us to rethink Dante's poem through their novel perspective and visual language. Owen's work, held in the Bodleian Library and published here for the first time, illustrates the complete cycle of thirty-four cantos of the Inferno with one image per canto. The illustrations are accompanied by essays contextualising Owen's work and supplemented by six illustrations intended for the unfinished Purgatorio series. Fiona Whitehouse provides details of the techniques employed by the artist, Peter Hainsworth situates Owen's work in the field of modern Dante illustration and David Bowe offers a commentary on the illustrations as gateways to Dante's poem. Jamie McKendrick and Bernard O'Donoghue's translations of episodes from the 'Inferno' provide complementary artistic interpretations of Dante's poem, while reflections from colleagues and friends commemorate Owen's life and work as an artist, scholar and teacher. This stunning collection is an important contribution to both Dante scholarship and illustration.

Most English translations of INFERNO are full of colorful, but meaningless language based on today's modern standards. Some translations are so elaborate that they are as difficult to read as the original Italian version. This translation uses the Longfellow translation as a base, but replaces the obscure or antiquated verbiage with the language of Modern English. This translation could easily be read and understood by today's reader. Adding the illustrations by Gustave Dore brings this classic work to life.

However, such a search can be carried on with some comprehensiveness only in the largest libraries in America, and then often only in the rare book rooms of these libraries.

"IN the midway of this our mortal life,I found me in a gloomy wood, astrayGone from the path direct: and e'en to tellIt were no easy task, how savage wildThat forest, how robust and rough its growth,Which to remember only, my dismay...

Discover William Blake's complete 102 illustrations for The Divine Comedy, with excerpts from Dante's epic poem. Featuring an intimate reading of Blake's extraordinary works and many close-up details, this is a breathtaking encounter with two of the finest artistic talents in history, as well as with such universal themes as love, guilt, ...

Commissioned in 1824 — just three years before his death — Blake's sublime watercolors are peerless interpretations of Dante's vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven and range from finished pieces to rough sketches.

These 110 deceptively simple illustrations are the great achievement of English artist John Flaxman. Awash in pathos and recalling a classically Greek style, they have inspired such artists as Goya and Ingres.