With a binder of gum arabic, watercolours came into use in the Renaissance, and have steadily increased in popularity.
Delacroix
In the fourth circle, the avaricious and spendthrifts push boulders at one another. In the fifth are the wrathful and the miserable, steeped in the Stygian marsh.
Dante and Virgil enter Hell, where they first encounter the souls of those too cowardly to choose between God and the Devil. Then it’s time for a boat trip with Charon.
This new series will travel with Dante and Virgil as they visit Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, looking at the many masterworks inspired by the poem.
Gretchen poisoned her mother and drowned her baby; she is now in jail awaiting execution. Faust wants to rescue her, but Mephistopheles isn’t bothered.
Faust and Mephistopheles attend the witches’ celebrations on the Brocken peak in the Harz Mountains – a wild night, it seems.
Gretchen and Faust become lovers, but her mother dies as a result of Faust’s sleeping potion, and he kills her brother in a sword-fight.
Faust lusts after the young Gretchen. Mephistopheles sets up a meeting, and the girl is soon in love with Faust, ready to do anything for him. And so she does.
Faust signs his contract with the devil in his own blood. Paintings by Ary Scheffer and others, and an engraving by Delacroix tell this story vividly.
Tasso’s narrative is as complex and interwoven as these six leading characters, from the pious Godfrey to the scheming sorceress Armida.
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