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We chose to engage with the new future theme of Technology, as well as Diversity and Inclusion. Through an examination of how artistic illustrations of the Divine Comedy have evolved, we can gain an insight into how creative technology progressed and the use of certain materials, colours and techniques evolved over time. Additionally, the theme of Diversity and Inclusion is present as the various viewpoints of the artists we researched demonstrate a range of religious attitudes. Each illustrator brought their own religious values to their work, and interpreted Dante’s poem differently. However, the time constraints of our project prevented us from a broader exploration of Diversity and Inclusion as we did not examine perceptions of the afterlife in other religions and cultures.

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Dante Alighieri’s epic 1320 poem, “The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise” follows a narrator as he is guided by the classical poet Virgil through the woods and then the three stages of Hell (or Inferno), Purgatory (or Purgatorio) and Heaven (Paradiso). Dante viewed hell as a structure of 9 circles, in which sinners are tortured for eternity by numerous monsters and evils. The narrator travels through the mountain of Purgatory, consisting of seven circles and eventually arrives in paradise, guided by Virgil and his platonic love Beatrice to reach the angels and God. It is a daring and bold exploration of the afterlife and one of the most respected pieces of art in history, widely regarded as a masterpiece of literature.

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Dalí was born in the very Catholic country of Spain, though rebelled against his religious surroundings throughout his upbringing. He was known to protest against the Church and its values, drawing a blasphemous image of Christ in 1929 and publicly blaming Catholicism for his profound sense of guilt surrounding sex. However, following the Second World War, Dalí began drifting towards the church and rediscovering his religious origins. He began to journey down a more religious artistic path and in 1949, he received a private audience with the Pope. Combining scientific and spiritual understandings, Dali embarked on a style of painting which he termed nuclear mysticism and adopted a modern take on orthodox ideas of Christianity. Ultimately, the commissioning of Dalí by the Italian government and enormous public attention that this garnered is evidence of enduring religious values in Spain and Europe in general. It is also representative of the legacy of Dante’s Comedy, demonstrating its lasting relevance and appreciation in contemporary Western society. However, Dalí’s abstract and interpretive illustrations display the move away from traditional ideas and values of Christianity in modern times. Spirituality and conceptions of the afterlife in the 20th century tend to generally be less realistic and linear but rather more metaphorical, abstract and figurative, as shown in Dalí’s watercolours.

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Dalís depiction of Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ is “considered by many to be the most creative total body of work ever by Dalí.” (Fornés 2016) The striking visual greatness of this work offers enormous insight into this narrative poem, drawing on Dante’s descriptions whilst creating space for Dalí’s own interpretation of the characters and events. Through a psychoanalytical lens, typical of Dalí due to his fascination with Freud, he achieves an exploration of the larger individual conscious and unconscious, blurring the lines between dreams and reality. While Dalí could not restrain himself from exploring his own symbols, imagery and interpretation of the poem, “in many of the watercolors, Dalí was able to create powerful scenes, quite parallel to the fabulous poem, which were also striking as purely Dalí images by themselves.” (Fornés 2016) His representation of the inferno paints an absurd, nightmarish and ghastly landscape in accordance with Dante’s vision. In the Purgatorio, “his aesthetic becomes existentially expressionistic, and in the Paradiso [Dalí] brings forth a happier, almost traditionally religious aesthetic” (Baricelli 1996, 87). The watercolours each feature enormous attention to detail, and careful consideration has been taken to ensure a delicate balance of various lines and colours in the works. Dalí skilfully executes the ambitious and complex task of visually walking the viewer through Dante’s poem through simple yet sophisticated usage of pen and watercolour. Over the 100 watercolours, he adopted “various styles and media, from sketches to anatomical exercises, from watercolor freshness to heavy line-drawing.” (Baricelli 1996, 87). Ultimately, Dalí was able to capture the mythical nature of the story in a unique and modern fashion, representing a break from traditional realistic imagery whilst still successfully encapsulating the entire narrative.

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Salvador Dalí was a Surrealist painter and printmaker born on the 11th of May 1904 in Figueras, Spain. In 1922, Dalí gained admission into the San Fernando Academy of Art in Madrid, despite the reluctance of his parents. He began to achieve significant success and notoriety within the Spanish art scene, experimenting with several avant-garde painting styles including Futurism, Purism and Cubism. However, Dali’s “behaviour was frequently exhibitionistic, rebellious, and eccentric in an effort to appear unique” (Romm and Slap 1983, 337), frequently opposing his lecturers and encouraging his fellow students to challenge authority at the academy.

As a member of the Surrealist movement, Dalí’s experimental imagery and bizarre, flamboyant behaviour was embraced by his peers. Themes of death, memory, decay and sexual symbolism dominate Dalí’s early work, drawing significant inspiration from the psychoanalytic studies of Sigmund Freud through imagery of dreams, hallucinations and the unconscious. However, following the Second World War Dalí’s style became more focused as a result of his newfound interest and understanding in areas of religious mysticism and nuclear physics. He began incorporating aspects of classicism and the styles of great Italian Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

On the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth, Dalí was commissioned by the Italian government to create a lavish illustration of ‘The Divine Comedy’. This piece of literature is regarded extremely highly and with immense pride by many Italians, thus the decision to enlist a Spaniard rather than an Italian caused public outrage. Additionally, the pope’s choice of a self-proclaimed ‘Surrealist void of all moral values’ agitated many and ultimately saw the termination of Dalí’s contract by the Italian Government. Dalí chose to continue his work with the assistance of French publisher, Joseph Forêt, and painted 100 watercolours between 1951 and 1960 to depict the 14 000 verses of the Comedy.

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The painting ‘Falsari’ which was finished by Guttuso in 1960 had depicted inferno canto 30 in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. 1960 was the period that religious crisis of Christianity had arisen dramatically. In Dante’s poem, it mentioned that inferno 30 is a place for punishing the falsifiers of others who faked their identities and were unfaithful to others. The falsifiers were said to be penalized in the tenth pouch of the eight circle of hell which caused them to suffer from tearing each other with their teeth due to their refusal to admit their own personalities and need to face the loss of their own unique characters. In the painting, Renato Guttuso had illustrated a scene of part of the inferno 30 where sinners were densely stayed together. This version of inferno was presented in a modern way with the idea of Marxism and sarcasm to represent it to viewers the context of the poem with pictorial language. Moreover, instead of illustrating Dante’s inferno in a plain, and black and white drawing, the illustration of inferno followed Guttuso’s painting style of using vibrant colours such as red, purple and yellow to demonstrate and relate to the concept of hell. The facial expressions of the falsifiers in the work are realistic and are mostly emotionless and soulless. Some of them are even covering their bodies. Most artists were able to display the scenes and characters mentioned by Dante precisely, while Guttuso had incorporated it with political events which portrayed the faces of the sinners with contemporary politicians. This slightly polictised the illustration of inferno in Guttuso’s version with the combination of political events and religious belief.

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Renato Guttuso, on the other hand, enjoyed referencing previous artworks by other artists in their manners and patterns and recreated them with the use of contemporary cultures.

Despite the religion of Renato Guttuso was not apparently being recorded, it could be told from his painting ‘Crucifixion’, which depicted the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, that he did have faith in the Christianity since this work was released during the war time for which Guttuso wished to support those whose thoughts were not accepted by others. Therefore, it is believed that his faith in Christianity had greatly influenced his understanding of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and created the work in the perspective of how Christians perceive hell.

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The Divine Comedy is an examination of the inner workings of the human soul. Dante looks at both romantic and religious love, and ultimately finds a way to accept exile and mortality. Hell is described as a medieval city and the 19th century depictions of the Inferno by Gustave Dore has created Hell as a dark place. In Canto III, hell is a place for those who chose an evil way of life and paradise is a place for people who chose righteous way of life. Although hell was defined as a hopeless and suffering place, but it has also created out of divine justice.

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The Divine Comedy went into circulation in the early 14th century, and over fifteen commentaries were written on the text during the 14th and 15th centuries. “Dante and Virgil at the Entrance” is published in 1871 by Gustave Dore. It was talking about the way to Hell. Dante was lost in a dark wood and has followed Virgil to the mountain top. Virgil says that the path will lead them to Hell and reach Heaven, where Beatrice, the love of Dante, awaits. Dante has to travel through layers of Hell. On the gates of Hell, it marked that “abandon all hope, you who enter here.” Dante did not understand the meaning of the word on the gate so he asked Virgil for explanation. Virgil told him that here is a place for fallen people and for those people who have lost the good of intellect.

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Blake’s individual interpretation and opinions about Dante’s work can be seen in his physical inversion of bodies in cantos of ‘Inferno’. This symbolises whether Blake rejects or agrees with ‘Dante’s criticism of the Christian Church’. (Burnside 2018, 1) as seen in ‘The Last Judgement’ produced in 1808, pictures humans on the left side of the illustration to be crawling up to heaven where Jesus is seated. On the right side and beneath the middle of the illustration, people are upside down being lowered into the depths of hell. Blake has included on the left side which represents the divine ascendance to heaven, the vision of the last supper and image of a baptism. These both symbolise eternal life through critical biblical stories. Pictured in this illustration, is a cross with a serpent wrapped around it. Blake symbolically believed that the cross was an ‘instrument of execution’ and something that avenged sin thus shouldn’t depict forgiveness and divinity. Further, this serpent symbol has the meaning of ‘hypocrisy and materialism' (Burnside 2018, 3) This symbolism thus includes Blake’s views during the Late Modern Period as an artist towards the Christian Church being steeped in hypocrisy itself and of his rejection of Dante’s vision of divine punishment. In Blake’s ‘Simoniac Popes’ (1824-7), it depicted Blake’s faithfulness to Dante’s text thus showing he took more of a likening to this section of his poem. This picture illustrates a naked man being suspended upside down, meaning to represent Pope Nicholas. He is seen to be a sinner as his body is inverted and his feet are on hire. Dante is being carried by Virgil so he can inspect the sinner closer. This inversion by Blake shows direct inspiration from Dante as this interpretation is starkly similar. This idea in this section of Dante’s Inferno claimed that popes are guilty of “trampling the good and raining the wicked” as seen in the pope shown with his feet up being raised in Blake’s representation. Blake and Dante similarly believed in both different eras of society that the church had strayed enormously from God’s true message that this version ‘could be described as upside down.’ (Pyle, 187) Blake through these two representations of purgatory and paradise within Dante’s Divine Comedy in ‘The Last Judgement’ and ‘Simoniac Popes’ showed agreement with Dante that the institutional Church strayed from the original teachings of Christ, intertwining both of their society’s perceptions of the time.

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In the highest level of the paradise, Empyrean, Botticelli depicts Dante’s and Beatrice’s path to the Empyrean as gliding on a river of light. To represent the blessed, Botticelli uses cherubs, tumbling playfully with childlike joy through the river of light. It visualized the dynamic vitality and happy atmosphere of this moment. Botticelli illustrated them in a tender way that they seem transparent, as their bodies were transfused with light.

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In Canto 26, the souls of the blessed, those who can stay in proximity of God, are placed in concentric circles, as if they were circulating around the two characters and keep moving around them. Dante in the illustration is covering his sight with his hand, which relates to the previous canto “Ah, how disturbed I was within my mind,”. Beatrice then encourages Dante to verge his eyes towards the heavenly vision. Botticelli’s illustration demonstrated motion and gesture precisely. The intangible outlines of the circle also convey a sense of light-air infinity. The souls of the blessed reflects the sound of the heavenly light.

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Context on religious attitudes towards paradise at the time

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Context on religious attitudes towards paradise at the time

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From Botticelli’s illustration and other artistic representations, Dante’s central place of purgatory and paradise from the Divine Comedy in the western tradition is shown. It demonstrates a resurgence in the poet’s popularity during the 15th century. Dante’s work became a religious commentary which was often read in churches. The concept of Mortality is also shown. Botticelli has shown that moving from life to death was to take part in a process, not an event. This shows that people perceived going to Paradise as a journey. The perception of paradise as a space signifying order, beauty, and safety is also shown in his illustration. The presence of angels and cherubs are also clearly shown in the illustration such as Paradiso XXX as mentioned. Light and flames, and the calm atmosphere in paradise are also cherished and demonstrated from the set such as Paradiso XXVI. Most importantly, the presence of God is obvious in his illustration as well as Christian’s thought of God.

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Technique wise, the drawings were made on sheets of fine goatskin. Manuscripts were considered very valuable at the time as well. The drawings are on the smooth side of the sheet, while on the rough side of each sheet there is a canto of the poem. Each of the illustration occupies a separate page and is not connected with the text. Botticelli’s approach to creating illustrations was new for his time. Majority of the paintings are in silverpoint drawings, where they are in silvery-grey metal point and pen and ink sepia wash. Only a small number of the drawings are fully engraved and colored. Botticelli also take a much earlier tradition of synchronous representation.

Interpretation: (Overall)
In Botticelli’s illustration, he concentrates its content in the laconic expressiveness of two figures, Dante and Beatrice. Recurring dialogue is used to show the subtlest shades of feelings such as joyful impulse and faith. Botticelli also created an independent pictorial narrative, forerunner of the graphic novel. His illustration is said as highly unusual and immensely inventive. To deeply understand Botticelli’s illustration, I will particularly examine two pieces of his illustration of paradise.

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William Blake's The Last Judgement (1808)

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William Blake's Simonaic Popes: Canto 19 (1824-7)

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William Blake (1757 – 1827) was an English poet and artist, especially skilled in printmaking. Inspired by the bible from an early childhood age, Blake was a Christian and believed Jesus encapsulated the vital connection between divinity and humanity. He also viewed Satan to be beyond salvation and the error in creation. After receiving a commission from John Linnell to illustrate a series inspired by ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’, he created 102 pencil sketches and 7 complete etchings and died before the works were entirely finished. Blake delving into the project before his death, grappled to understand how Dante’s ideas of humanity and its connection to the divine differed from his own ideas. Blake through his own religious beliefs saw Jesus to connect divinity and humanity. Further, the spirit of life followed no oppression of man’s natural desires. Blake rejected Dante’s belief of god as punisher and hell being a physical place as he saw Christianity to corrupt the teachings of Christ. Dante lived and wrote during the early Renaissance Era in this time period of 1265 – 1321. This era was profoundly influenced by the church and often drove artists to their inspiration for the creation of their art including Dante. The concept of humanism had influenced society’s perceptions of heaven and hell at the time of the release of Dante’s Divine Comedy as it saw humans as the prime importance and not any supernatural forces or entity’s. Humans were accepted or rejected by God into the physical creations of purgatory and paradise. Blake’s disagreeance with this was his beliefs were rooted in his aversion to stasis. He rejected any ideas of an afterlife that didn’t allow ‘spiritual growth and the possibility of divine forgiveness’ (Burnside 2018, 2) thus, his societal beliefs during his time, influenced his opinion of Christianity being a punitive way of authorities containing society through a false ‘moral code’ that had to be followed if they wished to stay away from hell and punishment.

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Another important artist for the illustration of the Divine Comedy is Sandro Botticelli. He is an Italian Painter who was borne in the 15th century around 1444 in Florence. He grew up near the church of Ognissanti with his family. He was said to be one of the greatest colorists of Renaissance painting. He died on May 17, 1510 in Florence. And most importantly, he is a Christian.

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Renato Guttuso's Work Inferno, canto XXX (1960)

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Renato Guttuso was a Sicilian painter who was born in 1911 and moved to Rome to start his artist career in the early 1930. After the development of his artistic abilities, he became one of the most significant post-war artists of realist painting in Italy. As he was living in the period when wars were happening frequently and he was also a member of the underground Italian Community Party, most of his works had reflected some of his political opinions modernly and in a Marxist way, especially during the Spanish Civil War and the late fascist period. Apart from the politicised paintings that Renato Guttuso had created, he also demonstrated paintings reflecting contemporary life and events of both Rome and Sicily.

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Gustave Dore's work The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise (1866)

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Gustave Dore was a great and well-known illustrator and has created more than ten thousand images for books and magazines and as well as Bible.

Dante’s Divine Comedy was the first series of artwork that Gustave Dore created without being commissioned. The divine comedy is divided into three parts which are The Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Dore’s artwork style is mostly with romantic movement, and his imagery has also helped to shape the modern concept of Christian afterlife in popular consciousness. Besides, Dore’s Dante illustrations have also influenced the later artists who sought to illustrate the Commedia.

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Sandro Botticelli's Work, Paradiso XXVI (1481)

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Sandro Botticelli's Work, Paradiso VI (1481)

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Sandro Botticelli's Work, Paradiso XXX (1481)

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Salvador Dalí's work The Archangel Gabriel (1960-1964)

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Audeh, Aida. 2009. “Gustave Doré’s Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy: Innovation, Influence, and Reception.” In Studies in Medievalism XVIII: Defining Medievalism(S) II, edited by Karl Fugelso, 125–64. Suffolk, England: Boydell & Brewer.
Barricelli, Jean-Pierre. 1996. “Dante in the Arts: A Survey.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 114: 79–93. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40166596.
Barricelli, Jean-Pierre. 1996. “Dante: Inferno I in the Visual Arts.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 114: 15–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40166594.
Blake, William. 1824-7. The Simonaic Pope. Ink and watercolour on paper, 527 mm X 368 mm. Tate, London.
Blake, William. 1824-7. A Vision of the Last Judgement. Ink and watercolour on paper, 213 cm X 152 cm.
Botticelli, Sandro. 1481. Paradiso XXVI. Silverpoint drawing, 47 cm X 64 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Botticelli, Sandro. 1481. Paradiso VI. Silverpoint drawing, 47 cm X 64 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Botticelli, Sandro. 1481. Paradiso XXX. Silverpoint drawing, 47 cm X 64 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Burnside, Rachelle. 2019. “William Blake, Dante, and Images of Inversion in Inferno.” Western Tributaries 5 (January): 1–12.
Dalí, Salvador. 1963. Paradise: Canto 31. Woodblock engraving, 48.58 cm X 42.23 cm. Washington, DC.
Dalí, Salvador. 1963. The Archangel Gabriel. Woodblock engraving, 33 cm X 26 cm. Washington, DC.
Deimling, Barbara. (2017) 2021. Botticelli. Cologne, Germany: Taschen GmbH.
Doré, Gustave. 1871. Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell. Wood Engraving. Berlin, Germany. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. https://jstor.org/stable/community.15716690.
Doré, Gustav. 1866. The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise. Metal engraving, 50 cm x 76.2 cm.
Fornés, Eduard. 2016. Dalí - Illustrator. Paris: Les Heures Claires.
Francia, Peter de. 1987. “Renato Guttuso.” Art Monthly, no. 104: 20–22. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/renato-guttuso/docview/1366933208/se-2?accountid=12372.
Guttuso, Renato. 1960. Inferno: Canto XXX. China and watercolour on paper, 72 cm X 51 cm.
Kibler, Louis. 1979. “Moravia and Guttuso: A La Recherche de La Realite Perdue.” Italica 56 (2): 198–212. https://doi.org/10.2307/478955.
Romm, Sharon, and Joseph William Slap. 1983. “Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí: Personal Moments.” American Imago 40 (4): 337–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26303570

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Salvador Dalí's work Paradise: Canto 31 (1963)

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How have artistic representations of the afterlife evolved since the release of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and how do these parallel shifts in western society’s perceptions of these concepts and attitudes towards religion in general?

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How have artistic representations of the afterlife evolved since the release of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and how do these parallel shifts in western society’s perceptions of these concepts and attitudes towards religion in general?

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Loi Sin Kio, Tara

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Anna Martin

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Charlotte Campbell

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Yee Wang Lee, Ivan

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On In Leong, Abbie