How Dante meets up with Virgil, and is guided by him down to the deepest circle of Hell. About the other two books, covering Purgatory and Paradise.
Delacroix
The remarkable story of how Lycurgus laid down the oral laws of Sparta, to create the perfect male warrior. Paintings by Degas, Delacroix, David and others.
Drawing the chariot of Bacchus/Dionysus, fighting with Christian martyrs, in a Paris zoo, or torrential rain in a tropical storm, or being hunted to be turned into a skin.
Nicolas Poussin’s superb set from the end of his career, a series of women by Bouguereau, Delacroix’s set of myths, Mucha, Crane and a Japanese set from 1917.
Every painter should have a suit of armour hanging in their studio, and those of German Romantics, Pre-Raphaelites and others, of Don Quixote.
Virgil leads Dante through the gate of Hell, with its inscription ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’. Charon is persuaded to carry them across with the souls of the dead to enter Hell.
If there’s one book every head of state and leader should read, it’s Dante’s Inferno. Introduction to a new series showing paintings of this first part of his Divine Comedy.
Summary and contents of the first 19 articles, covering the origin of the world, the great flood, fall of Phaëthon, rape of Europa, the fall of Thebes, and more.
Hercules wrestling with Achelous, Jacob wrestling with the Angel, the young Samson wrestling with a lion, and wrestlers from Courbet, Bazille and Friant.
The origin of the conical hat worn by Jews. and that worn by dunces. Cavaliers and Roundheads, crowns and mitres, the cardinal’s red biretta, and Dante’s chaperon.
The Eclectic Light Company 