Cosmos / Universe
Mood Board
Botticelli's Dantes inferno
Botticelli also known as Sandro Botticelli is a famous Italian painter in the renaissance era of art. Botticelli in total created 102 drawings inspired by Dantes Inferno depicting each level of hell. He shows in great detail how big hell is and how many souls resided within it. I am inspired by the colour pallet in which Botticelli works with more muted down colours and earth tones i don't want might piece to be bright at all.
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri is the poet who wrote Dantes Inferno or better known as Divine Comedy. He was born in Florence Italy 1265 along with being a poet he was also a philosopher. He started his work on the inferno in 1308 - 1320 he died in 1321 with his work unpublished. This didn't happen till 11th April 1472. His work has been popular over centuries and is still discussed and used as inspiration in the 21st century. His view of the afterlife is one in which many people had in the medieval world at the time.
​
In Dantes Inferno, we follow a soul's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Heaven. As a reader, we learn about each level of hell and what punishment fits the sin this is broke into nine rings of hell such as:
​
1. Limbo - Souls here are unbaptized, pagan, or not catholic.
​
2. Lust - Souls here are punished by being blown by violent winds preventing peace or rest.
​
3. Gluttony - Souls are punished by rotting away with ice rain overlooked by a Cerberus creature.
​
4. Greed - Souls drag about heavyweights or boulders to the center of the circle over and over again.
​
5. Wrath - The wrathful fight each other on a river.
​
6. Hersey - Heretics whose souls did not agree to Christian doctrine lay burning alive in tombs.
​
7. Violence - The 7th ring is divided into three such as the outer ring being murderers sinking into boiling blood. The middle is suicide they turn into bleeding trees. Finally, Blasphemers and somites who reside in the desert if burning sand and are scorched by burning rain.
​
8. Fraud - Evil ditches are in this ring rach with a different punishment depending on what kind of fraud you committed such as being whipped by demons or steeped in excrement.
​
9. Treachery - They are struck frozen in a lake of ice. The lake has four rings with the last resided by Lucifer himself and Brutus, Cassius, and Judas.
​
Overall I am inspired by the Chaos of Dantes Inferno and the contrast of evil and holy. A lot of biblical things have been inspiring like Cain and Able and Lilith and eve. I mostly want to show the chaos of Dantes's Inferno.
​
Gustave Dore
There have been many artists that have done their interpretation of Dantes inferno.Gustave Dore was a french artist in the 18th century. I have come across a lot of his work in my research for Dantes Inferno his illustrations are shown everywhere depicting the nine levels of hell. I enjoy his style and how it looks like a wood carving with all the dark and harsh lines and stark contrast of white. The second drawing is of the seventh ring of hell showing violence mainly the sin of suicide turning souls into bleeding trees. The way he has drawn the anatomy is so detailed and realistic it reminds me of the sculptures we see of the Romans and greeks.
As Above, So Below
As Above, So Below is a movie on amazon prime that follows a group of people investigating the catacombs in France however the deeper they go turns into hell like Dantes Inferno and different levels have more happening and show things like people swimming in boiling blood and limbo.
​
The movie is dark and is a slow burn but the further we follow the characters we eventually come to a wall that is known as the gates of hell. We see a mirror world of what we know as hell with people being torched and punished for their sins. The characters are made to face their sins as well.
The 13 Ghosts / The Dark Zodiac
The 13 Ghosts is a movie that was made in 2001 and directed by Steve Beck. The ghosts within the movie are of interest to me with this project as they each represent a form of a tortured soul that links back to Dantes's Inferno and the punishment souls receive in the afterlife. I wanted to see someone's physical interpretation of that in makeup. They are also roughly based on the dark zodiac but not exactly as they arent a true copy. The dark zodiac is the darker qualities of the zodiacs that we commonly know today all their worst traits.
​
Tim Beach was the lead art director on the movie however there was a huge crew involved with the makeup, costume, and design for these ghosts.
​
An example of how each represents a tortured soul is 'The Angry Princess' was an abused woman and who sought perfection to hide her flaws and died due to a botched surgery. Another is 'The Torso' who was a gambler and owed money to the mafia due to this they punished him and killed him in a brutal way and lastly ' The First Born Son' who loved playing as a cowboy and was challenged by a friend to a duel who sadly used a real bow and arrow.