Dante and Virgil enter the first circle of Hell, Limbo, where those who never sinned but weren’t baptised in the Christian faith are confined.
Tintoretto
The Renaissance provided the tools of realist painting, but remained largely bound to religious and mythical motifs. Seventy years later, many new genres had appeared.
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.
The red that lasts hundreds of years without fading, but it’s a highly toxic salt of mercury. Used in European paintings from the Romans to the late 19th century.
Perseus and Andromeda, the death of Medusa, Proserpine abducted by Pluto to Hades, weaving contest between Minerva and Arachne, Lycians turned into frogs, Marsyas flayed, Jason and the Golden Fleece, and the origins of Theseus.
The scales of justice, prominent on many courts of law, and Vedders’ warning of corrupt legislation, for weighing souls entering paradise, or apples in a Brittany market.
Plague ravaged cities across Europe and much of the world, cholera came from contaminated water supplies, then there were influenza and tuberculosis.
Parrots as extras in myths, witnessing Eve taking the apple from the serpent, and as companions to a succession of beautiful women.
From the way of the cross, ascending Calvary, to the Crucifixion, descent from the cross, pietà, and entombment.
From Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, through the Last Supper, to his trials and crowning with thorns.
The Eclectic Light Company 