More favourite articles from 2019, from ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’ as painted by William Blake, through Vincent van Gogh, to Renoir’s landscapes.
Dante
After Rossetti’s death in 1882, Marie Spartali Stillman kept his obsession alive. Then can Odilon Redon, who also fell for the story of Beatrice.
Rossetti was obsessed with Beatrice, sometimes the literary figure from Dante’s ‘Vita Nuova’, other times that from the Divine Comedy. He was also obsessed with his models Lizzie Siddall and Jane Morris.
Claimed to be Dante’s beloved, Beatrice Portinari has become one of the most painted women in history. But she may have been symbolic rather than physical. Paintings by Blake and others.
Illustrated table of contents to all the articles here describing Dante’s Divine Comedy and the great paintings and prints that accompany it.
If Inferno and Purgatory are the stick, Paradise must be the carrot – the incentive to live a pious and upright life. Shown in paintings by Blake, engravings by Doré, and others.
In which Dante passes through the realm of fixed stars, then the Primum Mobile, which is the origin of time, and finally the mind of God in the Empyrean. One last Blake too.
In which Dante learns about just rulers and the unjust from a giant eagle made from spirits, and sees Jacob’s ladder leading up to the highest heaven.
Dante meets St Thomas Aquinas in the shell of the sun, then moves upward to that of Mars, where there are holy warriors.
Dante and Beatrice ascend to the shell of Mercury, where they meet Justinian, then on to Venus, where love is the order of the day.
