The Divine Comedy

Marco Russo Art + Edizioni Carthesia

Three painting on canvas (50x70 cm size) that tells the poet's journey.

The project:

I took part in the project The Divine Comedy published by Chartesia Publisher, born in 2021 as a contemporary reinterpretation of Dante's poem.

The work involved 36 artists, each invited to visually interpret cantos and characters from the Comedy through their own expressive language.

A collective project that brings tradition into dialogue with contemporary artistic vision.

For me, it was an opportunity to engage with one of the most powerful texts in our culture and translate it into images through my style.

Inferno (The Hell)

– Canto XXXI –

Inferno is the best-known part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and therefore the part that has been illustrated and reproduced most often. With so many references available, it was easy to come up with ideas from the various cantos. I actually had several in mind: the famous scene from Canto I in which Charon ferries Dante and Virgil, or a close-up of the Poet who, seeing the tortured souls, gives in to tears of fear, sorrow, terror and guilt. 

However, I was looking for new images, ones that had never been reproduced before and, above all, that could be as dynamic as the cover of a superhero comic while still being painted in the most traditional sense.

I therefore chose Canto XXI, where Dante visits the well of the giants. But how giant are these giants? Dante says they were like towers. I wanted to depict a claustrophobic scene: enormous men bound close to one another, half of their bodies in the water. Around them, in the darkness, the warm infernal light. 

Their faces clearly express their distress: they are confused, they cannot move, they cannot get out of the water, they cannot submerge the part that remains outside, they cannot communicate, vent, or be heard. It has been this way for millennia and it will be this way forever, while Dante observes all of this, astonished, from a higher point on the path.

He will have to descend, because in the hell he describes one must always descend; yet even from that elevated point, he cannot see the giants from above and is in fact below the vanishing point.

The painting went through an evolving genesis, especially regarding the colors. At first I thought I would play with a warm contrast for Dante and the ground he stands on, and cold colors for the giants. 

I felt the need to warm those cold colors, but I needed a color to do it. A particular color that would become the focus of everything. 

One day, together with my wife and my mother, we went to lunch at an Asian restaurant, and next to it there was one of those classic Chinese shops full of everything. My mother had to buy a few things, so we went in. Usually these shops always have a stationery section. This one also had a range of very particular acrylic colors. Among them, like a sudden illumination, I recognized the color I needed: a fluorescent pink. 

That specific “point” of color gave the image its atmosphere. The warm light reflects on the rough ceiling, made of hot rock on one side and icy stone on the other. 

To achieve that textured effect I used thick paint and acrylic gesso. To the touch, it feels even more real.

 

Purgatory

– Canto XXXI –

For me, Purgatory was a real discovery. I found it fantastic. But what could I represent? 

After the descent, the climb up the mountain? Dante in the fire that does not burn? No. There was only one image to create: the peak of the story before the vision of God in Paradise. And describing it in words requires more than a few lines. 

At the end of Dante’s arduous journey, after seeing horrible things and overcoming trials that forced him to surpass many of his limits, he arrives there, at the entrance to Paradise: Canto XXXI.

Dante’s eyes move from the sight of atrocious tortures and damned souls, sinners of every kind, to the Garden of Eden. And whom does he meet? Her. His muse, his love, his obsession. 

He made the most difficult journey in human history just to reach her. She, for her part, descended all the way to Hell to ask Virgil to take Dante and bring him to her, when she could have remained in Paradise in eternal peace. How does this love story, which traveled beyond death, time, space, evil and good, conclude? What does Beatrice say to the supreme poet when she sees him? Does she whisper everything she has done? Does she tell him about her plan to give Dante the privilege of knowing the three realms of the afterlife? She bitterly reproaches him.

Twist of the scene. Climax. Everyone in front of the TV still. With the hand in front of the mouth opened. Fingers holding a popcorn. All stopped. 

Beatrice reproaches Dante for practically everything, and the devastated poet collapses to the ground in tears. But why? For Love. 

Beatrice wanted Dante to be able to enter Paradise, and therefore he had to repent of every sin, because one cannot reach God as an unrepentant sinner. What a love story. 

Perhaps all these words are unnecessary when standing in front of the painting. Although there are many variations, the canvas is basically composed of green and red. The green is that of the earthly Paradise, luminous; but there are two reds: Dante is dressed in red and so is Beatrice. I wanted to play with that: Beatrice wears a red with a greater amount of white inside it, making it more pink. (Carmine and  vermilion), while Dante’s robe is a red with a greater amount of yellow, making it warmer and more “fire” (not by chance) and closer to earth tones. Above all, in this moment Dante is a sinner coming to terms with his sins, and therefore he is darker than both the earthly Paradise and Beatrice, who has already made things right with God.

Paradiso

– CANTO XXI –

Paradise gave me some difficulty. First of all, it is by far the least known part. 

There are very few images and, I would say, also information about it. 

Positive side: I certainly would not have been influenced. Negative side: I did not know where to start. 

Another issue: the iconography. 

When we hear the word Paradise, understood as the heavenly realm, what comes to mind? Angels? Clouds? Let’s say that this iconography could not be changed too much. If in Inferno the innovation was the use of a fluorescent color, here I could not innovate by creating a different “celestial” environment. Dante was a religious man who wrote what he knew. He quotes the Bible, speaks of and meets men with religious roles, and therefore he certainly imagined it in that way. I therefore chose an image with a “structured” iconography: Canto XXI, the golden ladder.

How do you imagine the staircase toward Paradise? I went with the classic choice: marble. And how is the image composed? Dante looks around, happy and incredulous; behind him, or rather in front of him, Beatrice appears, perspectively closer to God than he is, pointing the way, the central vanishing point above, from which the light comes: God,

Dante is about to get there. 

I asked an expert for help in understanding the context. On the stairs, men ascend and descend in an ethereal, luminous form. I imagined that these figures could have a clearer and more human shape as they descend, coming closer, so to speak, to the lower levels; and that they would be more united with the central light as they ascend.

The background is an immense triumph of calm, relaxing colors made of turquoise, blue and violet tones, colliding with straw-yellow lights and “rainbow” touches created by the strong, warm and pure central light. These reflections were made with yellow and fluorescent fuchsia acrylic colors. This kind of color raises saturation in a particular way, even when mixed with colors that have more “standard” parameters.

Exclusive

Edizioni Chartesia has granted the ABSOLUTE preview of this painting only for the " Marco Russo Art - OPEN STUDIO ONLINE ", the live broadcast during the days of Lucca Comics with the support of the event itself.
You can watch the broadcast at this link. At 1 hour and 17 minutes our Panel begins with Edizioni Chartesia with the participation of Marco Gottardi (Writer) and David Fazzari (our collaborator and moderator). Special thanks to Christian Ronchin the chief editor. - (We will add English subtitles in the video very soon) -
Click Here

Hell - Canto XXI

Acrylic painting, 50×70 cm

Purgatory – Canto XXXI

Acrylic painting, 50×70 cm

Heaven – Canto XXI

Acrylic painting, 50×70 cm

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