Gustave Doré Archives

Illuminating Dante Exhibit at the University of Arkansas

October 23, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“Presented from October 5-31, the exhibit consists of 22 items from Special Collections, including a recently acquired 1520 exemplar of the Divine Comedy with commentary by Cristoforo Landino, one full-page woodcut illustration, and 98 smaller woodcuts introducing each canto. Also on view are various editions of Dante’s masterpiece in Italian and English, with illustrations by Gustave Doré and John Flaxman, and works connected to or inspired by the Divine Comedy, including a collection of poems by Vittoria Colonna (1548) and a treatise by Lucrezia Marinella (1601).

“The exhibit includes medieval, early modern, and modern illustrations of the Divine Comedy, ranging from 13th-century illuminations to Sandro Botticelli’s and William Blake’s illustrations. Finally, the exhibit displays works that explore the reception of Dante’s masterpiece across cultural contexts, with works from countries including Spain and France. Examples from the African American community are represented, as well.” [. . .] — University of Arkansas News, October 5, 2021

See more information about the exhibit here.

Skinny Puppy, “Dig It” (1986)

July 19, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Canadian industrial rock pioneers Skinny Puppy released the single “Dig It,” from their album Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (Nettwerk Records), in 1986. The cover art for the single features Gustave Doré’s illustration of Farinata degli Uberti rising from his tomb among the heretics of the sixth circle (canto 10).

Read an interview with graphic designer Steven R. Gilmore, who designed the single’s cover art, here.

Watch the official music video for Skinny Puppy’s “Dig It” on YouTube.

Contributed by Alexa Kellenberger (Florida State University ’22)

“America in the Eighth Circle”

April 19, 2021 By Laura Chatellier, FSU '23

“Such a world, naturally, produced every manner of sin imaginable, and all these sins are carefully chronicled in Dante’s descent into the Inferno. The nine circles of the infernal city are, as Dorothy Sayers reminds us, Dante’s picture of human society in decay; the further Dante and Virgil descend, the more radically corrupt and degraded the society becomes. The pilgrims pass relatively quickly through first seven circles of hell. All the sins of appetite and violence are contained in the first half of the cantica. Then the travelers reach the Great Barrier, and here the poem slows down. Dante and Virgil plunge into the abyss of the eighth circle, which houses the fraudulent. Alas, the various sins punished here read like a cross-section of our ruling classes in Washington, New York, and Hollywood: we meet pimps and seducers, flatterers, hypocrites, and thieves, bribe-taking officials, false counsellors, and sowers of discord. They come at long last to the tenth and final ditch of the eighth circle. Here we find the liars—those who perpetrate the purest form of fraud, the one that unites all the others. Their stench is overwhelming.” [. . .] –Ben Reinhard, Crisis Magazine, September 21, 2020.

Jim Shaw, Donald and Melania Trump descending the escalator into the 9th circle of hell reserved for traitors frozen in a sea of ice (2020)

March 19, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Jim Shaw’s silkscreen print Donald and Melania Trump descending the escalator into the 9th circle of hell reserved for traitors frozen in a sea of ice (2020) depicts the former US President and First Lady passing into the ninth circle, populated by members of the Trump inner circle: John Bolton, Michael Cohen, Omarosa Manigault, Anthony Scaramucci, Jeff Sessions, and others. The lake of Cocytus appears to have been displaced to the ground floor of a dilapidated American shopping mall.

Simon Lee Gallery describes Shaw’s collected works thus: “The practice of American artist Jim Shaw (b. 1952, Midland, Michigan) spans a wide range of artistic media and visual imagery. Since the 1970s, Shaw has mined the detritus of American culture, finding inspiration for his artworks in comic books, pulp novels, rock albums, protest posters, thrift store paintings – his ever-growing collection of found artworks has been the subject of its own exhibition on several occasions – and advertisements. At the same time, Shaw has consistently turned to his own life and, in particular, his unconscious, as a source of artistic creativity. Providing a blend of the personal, the commonplace and the uncanny, Shaw’s works frequently place in dialogue images of friends and family members with world events, pop culture and alternate realities. Often unfolding in long-term, narrative cycles, the works contains systems of cross-references and repetitions, which rework similar symbols and motifs, allowing a story-like thread to be perceived.” –“Biography,” Simon Lee Gallery

See a discussion of Shaw’s exhibit Hope Against Hope, hosted by the Simon Lee Gallery (London) from October 20, 2020, to January 16, 2021, in The Art Newspaper.

Contributed by Deborah Parker (University of Virginia)

“L’Inferno in scatola: 5 giochi da tavolo a tema dantesco”

March 4, 2021 By Laura Chatellier, FSU '23

lInferno-in-scatola-5-giochi-da-tavolo-a-tema-dantesco-2021 “Probabilmente Dante Alighieri non lo avrebbe mai immaginato, ma a 700 anni dalla sua morte (datata 1321) esiste un filone di giochi da tavolo ispirati all’opera immortale del poeta fiorentino.

“È il caso di Dante Alighieri: Comedia – Inferno, che permette ai giocatori di accompagnare Dante e Virgilio tra le perdute genti, attraverso i cerchi dell’Inferno, in un gioco di carte semplice da spiegare e con un regolamento originale di draft a spirale. Collezionare incontri permette di guadagnare punti, ma attenzione a cadere in tentazione: prendere troppe copie uguali della stessa carta impedirà di fare punti. L’idea è del game designer Federico Latini, prodotta dalla casa editrice Sir Chester Cobblepot, italiana con sede a Ravenna, nonostante il nome british. La Comedia – Inferno è un gioco di carte adatto a tutti e bello anche da vedere, perché illustrato con le indimenticabili incisioni di Gustave Doré. Al momento è possibile preordinare una copia qui. Si tratta di una speciale edizione limitata (solo 700 copie e stanno finendo rapidamente), edita da Top Hat Games e disponibile in primavera. In futuro è possibile ci siano altre edizioni, ma per ora questa è l’unica confermata.” [, , ,] –Luca Francescangeli, Wired.IT, January 12, 2021.

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