Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Franz von Stuck, Inferno

By

inferno-painting-franz-von-stuck

“This painting’s title refers to Dante Alighieri’s medieval epic of a journey through hell. Although Stuck employed traditional symbols of the underworld—a snake, a demon, and a flaming pit—the dissonant colors and stylized, exaggerated poses are strikingly modern. He designed the complementary frame. Stuck’s imagery was likely inspired by Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, particularly the figure of The Thinker (see related works nearby). When Inferno debuted in an exhibition of contemporary German art at The Met in 1909, critics praised its ‘sovereign brutality.’ The picture bolstered Stuck’s reputation as a visionary artist unafraid to explore the dark side of the psyche.”   —Franz von Stuck, Inferno, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1908 (retrieved February 28, 2024)

Pierre Vassura, “ANALOGIES OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S DIVINE COMEDY, INFERNO – CANTOS 1 TO 10”

By

ABSTRACT-PAINTINGS-OF-FIRST-FOUR-CANTOS-OF-DANTES-INFERNO

Pierre Vassura, a visual artist born in Romagna, Italy, and based in British Columbia, has created a series of paintings called “ANALOGIES OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S DIVINE COMEDY, INFERNO – CANTOS 1 TO 10.” Vassura, who paints according to a style he calls “analogical formalism,” uses enamel paint on wood panels to create his abstract depictions of each canto of the first ten cantos of Dante’s poem. See more details at Vassura Analogy Art.

Edith Torony, Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars (2019 painting)

By

Love-that-Moves-the-Sun-and-Other-Stars-Painting

“My works are earthly, starting with Junkyard Symphony, an approach related to the exterior, ground and waste. The space is increasingly populated by ordinary or current objects, but also by characters, I am trying to maintain a playful manner through representation and recomposition. It passes into another register, the interior, the desires, the lust. but keeping the same horizontal plane. So this is how the personal mythologies were born, with sincerity, boredom, suffering, desires, or guilty pleasures. Beginning with Toxic Desire, I’m more interested in distinguishing my subjectivity and individual development. All the works were shaped around personal experiences. From the representations of the bad choices we make through our superficiality and a hedonistic living, to the assumption of this flat existence. We are captive in a sort of limbo of desires. And on this realm I build my works, as a sequential reinterpretation of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.”    –Edith Torony, “Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars”, Saatchi Art, 2019

“Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act,” Painting by Luciana Palazzolo (2018)

By

Beauty-Awakens-Soul-to-Act-Luciana-Palazzolo-Abstract-Painting-Black-on-white-background

“Black shapes dance across the large paper surface. The texture and viscosity is not homogeneous, because this way I was able to plays with transparency and opaqueness.The close ups show that some areas have the acrylic paint diluted in an almost watercolor. Also I have used pencils of different hardness to draw the lines. This painting can be enjoyed horizontally or vertically. It would be shipped to the collector rolled up in a tube, which would cut down considerably the shipping cost.”   –“About the Artwork,” Saatchi Art

“I produced a Dante’s Inferno series, a Joy series influenced by the work of Pollock, at the moment I am working on an Entanglement theme, where the line represent our lives, the paths that we have taken or could have taken. The lighter pencil marks are choices we didn’t make, the darker ink ones the decisions we made and marks we made on people and events.”   –From Luciana Palazzolo’s profile on Saatchi Art

View more works by Luciana Palazzolo here.

Frank Schroeder, Dante’s Inferno (2018)

By

“Of this work, Schroeder writes: ‘After reading The Divine Comedy, I was interested in having my own version of Hell and its different circles… I wanted my version more like a play than a painting. I wanted to describe all the mixed feelings in Hell: justice, tears, cries, desperation, evil, suffering, redemption and sorrows. For me, Hell is not necessarily black and dark… The use of colors is also to illustrate the three parts of the poem: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. My Inferno becomes a ballet where souls, evils, judgments and penalties are mixed… Maybe we can be better and win our place in Heaven walking through the Good and The Bad. Our souls can be delivered from evil through this long and hard journey. My Inferno is a theatre, a global vision of Hell and its circles, but also a sacred song of redemption.'”   —Artistic Interpretations: Frank Schroeder, Cornell University Library’s Visions of Dante Exhibition, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Laurent Ferri (2021; retrieved October 26, 2022)

Recent Dante Citings

Categories

Submit a Sighting

All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

Creative