To view prices and purchase online, please login or create an account now.



William Blake. Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. The Complete Drawings. 40th Ed.

Hardback

Main Details

Title William Blake. Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. The Complete Drawings. 40th Ed.
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Sebastian Schutze
By (author) Maria Antonietta Terzoli
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:464
Dimensions(mm): Height 217,Width 156
Category/GenreArt and design styles - c 1800 to c 1900
Art treatments and subjects
ISBN/Barcode 9783836589147
ClassificationsDewey:741.942
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Taschen GmbH
Imprint Taschen GmbH
NZ Release Date 9 February 2023
Publication Country Germany

Description

Celebrated around the world as a literary monument, The Divine Comedy, completed in 1321 and written by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), is widely considered the greatest work ever composed in the Italian language. The epic poem describes Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, representing, on a deeper level, the soul's path towards salvation. In the last few years of his life, Romantic poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827) produced 102 illustrations for Dante's masterwork, from pencil sketches to finished watercolors. Like Dante's sweeping poem, Blake's drawings range from scenes of infernal suffering to celestial light, from horrifying human disfigurement to the perfection of physical form. While faithful to the text, Blake also brought his own perspective to some of Dante's central themes. Today, Blake's illustrations, left in various stages of completion at the time of his death, are dispersed among seven different institutions. This edition brings these works together again, alongside key excerpts from Dante's masterpiece. Two introductory essays consider Dante and Blake, as well as other major artists who have been inspired by The Divine Comedy, including Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Dore, and Auguste Rodin. With an intimate reading of Blake's illustrations, and many close-ups to allow the most delicate of details to dazzle, this is a breathtaking encounter with two of the finest artistic talents in history, as well as with such universal themes as love, guilt, punishment, revenge, and redemption. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

Author Biography

Sebastian Schutze was a longtime research fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max Planck Institute for Art History) in Rome. He is a member of the academic board of the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici in Naples, and a member of the OEsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. From 2003 to 2009 he held the Bader Chair in Southern Baroque Art at Queen's University in Kingston. In 2009 he was appointed professor of early modern art history at Vienna University. After studying in Pavia, Bologna, and Geneva, Maria Antonietta Terzoli taught at the universities of Geneva and Zurich. Since 1991 she has been a professor at the University of Basel, where she is head of the department of Italian Studies. A philologist and interpreter of literary text, she specializes in Italian literature.

Reviews

Produced to the highest standard in kaleidoscopic color, this is a work to be treasured by lay readers and scholars alike. * The World of Interiors *