Alessandro Botticelli is one of the greatest artists Italy. Most people remember him as a representative who became famous for his bright canvases depicting young men and women of heavenly beauty. However, he also had gloomy paintings on religious themes. He was interested in the most terrible story in Christian theology - Hell. Botticelli, whose painting on this subject is in given time in the Vatican Library of Rome, finished writing it in 1480.
Its full name is "Abyss of Hell". It was created by the artist as an illustration for " Divine Comedy of his great compatriot.
"Hell" Botticelli - painting-illustration to Dante
Which gives us a lot of information about the biography of various artists, writes about the period in which the painter began to get involved in similar topics, the following. Alessandro became very famous for his work, and was invited by the Pope to Rome. There he earned a lot of money, but having a habit of a cheerful and carefree life, he spent almost all of it and was forced to return home. In this regard, the artist was filled with thoughtfulness and began to get involved in reading Dante. He made several drawings illustrating the latter's great work, The Divine Comedy.
At this time, he did not work for money, and thus became even more impoverished. "Hell" Botticelli illustrated along with other parts of this work - "Paradise" and "Purgatory". Approximately so it is possible to characterize the history of the creation of this picture.
Botticelli's painting "Hell" - a kind of "map of the area"
It is known that the artist is the author of several paintings based on famous work stern Florentine. However, it is this colored drawing on parchment that is known more than others, because it is a kind of “hell map”. After all, Dante in his book described not only the sins and terrible torments to which those who committed them were condemned. He created a kind of topography of Hell. According to the poet, the underworld consists of eight circles, and the underground river Acheron flows along the perimeter of the first of them. Streams flow from it, falling into the fifth circle - the swamps of Stygia, where angry people are punished. She then turns into bloody river Phlegeton, and in the ninth circle - with traitors - falls like a waterfall into the center of the earth and freezes. This icy abyss is called Cocytus. This is what Hell looks like. Botticelli, whose picture is actually a map of Dante's underworld, is trying to follow the poet's word exactly.
The circles of Hell described by the Florentine visionary are shrinking. Therefore, his underworld is a kind of funnel, placed on the tip. It rests on the center of the earth, where Lucifer is imprisoned. As the author says, the deeper hell, the narrower the circle, the more terrible the created sin. The most terrible criminals, according to Dante, are traitors. The artist depicts in some detail and carefully all the places listed by the poet where sinners languish and suffer. Other drawings, like the iconography of earlier times, show how Virgil and
Contemporary art and the work of the artist
Interestingly, this map, created by the painter, became very popular in the twentieth century. For example, the famous novelist Dan Brown, the author of the sensational "The Da Vinci Code", wrote another bestseller - "Inferno" (Hell). Botticelli, whose picture appears in this book as a kind of cipher, is done with light hand author, prophet Like, in his "map" there is a way to "implement" a certain modified version of the underworld here and now. However, this novel, despite all its fantasticness, made many Brown admirers carefully examine the drawing of the great Botticelli.
Botticelli's drawings illustrating the Songs of Hell from Dante's Divine Comedy, filled with small, darting figures of sinners, are full of an alarming confusion of lines; some of them, where the motif of a grand staircase-arch, connecting the circles of hell, is repeated, there is a genuine severe grandeur.
The color sheets for the Tenth and Eighteenth Cantos give an idea of how Botticelli intended the whole cycle of illustrations. Main characters- Dante and Virgil - attract attention with bright robes on a faded background.
Traveling through the sixth circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil end up in the city of Dit. There are stone tombs in which fire burns. Sinners, followers of the teachings of Epicurus, who do not believe in an afterlife, are punished there.
Everywhere you look - all the view of the old tomb, -
So there were graves everywhere,
Tormenting the dead with the bitterest punishment;
A stubborn flame lit latently,
Burned in these pits, heating them up like that,
How to heat iron would be difficult.
In open coffins and in open crayfish
Tormented breasts moaned bitterly
Outcasts - to know, pitiful was their sight *.
"Divine Comedy" Dante "Hell" Canto IX, verses 115-123.
While traveling through the eighth circle of hell, they encounter the souls of sinners, tormented by demons for various sins. The souls of deceivers, panders and seducers moving in rows are subjected to cruel scourging, the souls of hypocrites and harlots are immersed in a ditch with sewage.
Naked sinners walk in rows:
Some hurry to meet us in alarm,
And in step with us - but a wider step - others,
Like the Romans, who are many in number,
In the year of the anniversary crush, avoiding
The bridge was divided into two roads:
One column stretched, walking
In the direction of the castle, to the church of St. Peter,
And towards her, uphill, another one was walking.
Here and there in the depths of the harsh
Demons with horns brutally scourged
Sinful backs of the naked people.
"Divine Comedy" Dante "Hell" Canto XVIII, verses 25-36.
The drawing for Canto Thirty-one depicts ancient giants in rebellion against the gods. As punishment, they were chained in a gloomy well. Giants symbolize the brute force of nature.
Among them is a builder Tower of Babel King Nimrod blowing a horn hanging from his neck. Giant Elphiat, tightly entwined with five turns of chain, starting from the neck so that right hand pressed to the body from behind, and the left - in front. Antaeus, the only one free from the chains, carries Dante and Virgil to the next, ninth circle.
Illustrating the thirty-fourth, final Song of Hell, Botticelli depicts in the last circle of hell, named Giudecca, the three-headed Lucifer, with wings like bat. In the teeth of the three heads of the prince of darkness are the three greatest sinners-traitors - Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar, and Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The prince of darkness, over whom all Hell is heaped,
He lifted half his chest of ice;
And a giant, more like me,
Than in his hand (for you to count,
What is he in full growth, and the power of vision,
Appeared to us, fully comprehended).
Anciently beautiful, today is disgust itself,
He raised his arrogant gaze at his Creator -
He is the embodiment of all vices and evil!
And it was necessary to look so vile -
His head was equipped with three faces!
The first above the chest, red, savage;
And on the sides there are two, the place of their junction
Over the shoulders; a brutal look
Every face looked around wildly.
The first one seemed to be yellow and white,
And the left one is like those who lived a long time
Near the falls of the Nile, - blackened.
Under each is a pair of the broadest wings,
How befits a bird so mighty;
Goldfinches never matured with such a sail.
Without feathers, like a bat mouse;
He rotated them, and three winds, blowing,
They flew, each in a viscous stream;
From these jets, Cocytus was frozen, freezing.
Six eyes sobbed; three mouths through the lips
Saliva oozed, turning pink with blood.
And here, and here, and there teeth were tormented
By the sinner; there are only three of them,
And they endure torment.
To the great Florentine Dante from the great Florentine Botticelli, commissioned by a wealthy Florentine Lorenzo Medici. The "Divine Comedy" of the first inspired the second to create dozens of manuscripts with the money of the third, in the most detailed way illustrating a literary masterpiece of the XIV century. Most Interest causes a kind of infographic of Hell - a map, following which the heroes of the "Divine Comedy" can be seen in detail the torment to which sinners are subjected. The sight is not for the faint of heart.
Plot
Botticelli depicted Hell as a funnel. Unbaptized infants and virtuous non-Christians in limbo are given over to painless grief; voluptuaries who have fallen into the second circle for lust endure torment and torment by a hurricane; the gluttons in the third circle rot in the rain and hail; misers and spendthrifts drag weights from place to place in the fourth round; the angry and lazy always fight in the swamps of the fifth circle; heretics and false prophets lie in fiery graves on the sixth; all kinds of rapists, depending on the object of abuse, are tormented in different belts of the seventh circle - they boil in a ditch of red-hot blood, are tormented by harpies, or languish in the desert under a fiery rain; deceivers of those who do not trust languish in the crevices of the eighth circle: some are stuck in fetid feces, some boil in tar, some are chained, some are tormented by reptiles, some are gutted; and the ninth circle is prepared for those who deceived. Among the latter is Lucifer, frozen into the ice, who torments in his three jaws the traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Mark Junius Brutus and Cassius - the traitors of Jesus and Caesar, respectively).
The map of Hell was part of a large commission - illustrating the Divine Comedy by Dante. The exact dates of the creation of the manuscripts are unknown. Researchers agree that Botticelli began work on them in the mid-1480s and, with some interruptions, was occupied with them until the death of the customer - Lorenzo the Magnificent Medici.
Not all pages have survived. Presumably, there should be about 100 of them, 92 manuscripts have come down to us, of which four are fully colored. Several pages of text or numbers are blank, suggesting that Botticelli did not complete the work. Most of them are sketches. At that time, paper was expensive, and the artist could not just take and throw away a sheet with a failed sketch. Therefore, Botticelli first worked with a silver needle, squeezing out a drawing. Some manuscripts show how the idea changed: from the composition as a whole to the position of individual figures. Only when the artist was satisfied with the sketch did he outline the outlines in ink.
On reverse side For each illustration, Botticelli indicated the text of Dante, which explained the drawing.
Context
The Divine Comedy is a kind of Dante's response to the events of his own life. Having failed in the political struggle in Florence and being expelled from hometown, he devoted himself to enlightenment and self-education, including the study of ancient authors. It is no coincidence that Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, is the guide in the Divine Comedy.
The dark forest in which the hero got lost is a metaphor for the poet's sins and searches. Virgil (mind) saves the hero (Dante) from terrible beasts (mortal sins) and leads him through Hell to Purgatory, after which Beatrice (divine grace) gives way on the threshold of paradise.
The fate of the artist
Botticelli was from a family of jewelers and had to deal in gold and other precious metals. However, the boy liked to make sketches and draw much more. Plunging into the world of fantasy, Sandro forgot about his surroundings. He turned life into art, and art became life for him.
Among his contemporaries, Botticelli was not perceived as master of genius. Yes, good artist. But that was the period when many created, who later became famous masters. For the 15th century, Sandro Botticelli was a reliable master who could be entrusted with painting frescoes or illustrating books, but by no means a genius.
Botticelli was patronized by the Medici, famous connoisseurs of art. It is believed that while the painter last years spent his life almost in poverty. however, there is evidence that Botticelli was not as poor as he wanted to appear. However, he did not have his own home or family. The very idea of marriage frightened him.
After meeting the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who in his sermons convincingly called for repentance and abandoning the charms of earthly life, Botticelli completely fell into asceticism. The artist died at the age of 66 in Florence, where his ashes still rest today in the cemetery of the Church of All Saints.
Sandro Botticelli always seemed to me a very subtle and gentle artist and an unprotected, unadapted person. Maybe that’s how he was… But recently new details about his life and work have been revealed to me, and my opinion about him has not only changed, but enriched. It turns out that there is some kind of secret - not a secret, but in any case, unexpected and surprising things that can excite and intrigue ... So, which paintings are the most symbolic for the artist and who was the model for the main characters of Sandro Botticelli - today we are talking about this.
Botticelli, Birth of Venus
I don’t know how it correlates in the official interpretation: which picture is the most famous “Spring” or “The Birth of Venus”?
Birth of Venus
Both of them are beautiful, both are extremely famous. But for me, as long as I can remember, Venus Botticelli has always been the standard of femininity and beauty. I recently read Irving Stone's Pain and Joy. It is dedicated to Michelangelo, which is already doing it literary work extraordinarily attractive in my eyes. But in general, this is a kind of anthology about the Renaissance, about Florence - the birthplace of a whole galaxy of brilliant masters, about outstanding representatives of the Medici dynasty. Gorgeous thing! And there I read that Sandro Botticelli's lover was a certain girl Simonetta, she also served as the prototype for most irresistible female images artist.
I was suspecting that this is the author's fiction, purely literary character. But no! I read it on Wikipedia - absolutely historical person, a person noble birth, which, apparently, was just the idol of the Florentine high society. She was nicknamed Simonetta the Beautiful because of her incomparable external beauty. But legends have preserved the image of Simonetta as a girl of exceptionally meek, modest and charming behavior. They say that all Florentine men were in love with her, and at the same time, she was spared the jealousy and envy of women. Does this really happen? It looks like an idealized fairy tale, but the name of Simonetta the Beautiful remained in history, although she lived only 23 years ... One way or another, it is believed that Sandro Botticelli secretly loved her all his life, depicted a young woman from memory in his paintings after her death, never did not marry and had no children, and finally, bequeathed to bury himself next to Simonetta ... Such a touching and romantic story, which only enhances the gentle and refined motifs in the work of the painter.
Botticelli, Map of Hell
And suddenly - I'm not afraid of comparison: like a bolt from the blue! - such an image of a slightly blissful artist who revels in sublime art and Platonic love has been shaken and revised! Again from fiction, namely from the novel by Dan Brown "Inferno" I draw various information about the "Divine Comedy" by Dante. And in general, as in the previous case, not only about the great poet and his famous poem, but again about the Renaissance, about Florence and its famous citizens. Describing and interpreting the meaning of the circles of Dante's hell in great detail, the author of Inferno, for greater clarity, weaves into his plot picturesque picture titled "Map of Hell".
And what do you think, who is the creator of this really "hellish" picture? Yes, Sandro Botticelli. I can't believe this singer female beauty and exquisite magical harmony, could be seduced by images of all sorts of horrors that sinners endured in hell! I again think that these are artistic liberties and assumptions that in fact such a picture did not exist. And if such a real canvas existed, then Botticelli could not have been its author. I check Wikipedia again: yes, the artist actually created a series of illustrations for The Divine Comedy at one time. And somewhere on the Internet, I find this very Map of Hell ... Well, to say - disappointed? No, not at all, rather surprised. It turns out that this is how Love, Beauty, service can intertwine in a bizarre way. beautiful lady and gloomy heavy reflections on human destinies. After all, these gloomy thoughts could not have been missing when creating a work with such a plot and title - Map of Hell.
The theme of the circles of hell was already developed by artists, composers, and directors of the 20th century. Many video game lovers know that there is a game called "Dante: Inferno". And in 2010, a fantasy cartoon based on the book by D. Alighieri was even published.
9 Circles of Hell: Dante's "Divine Comedy"
The famous singer and, probably, the first science fiction writer Dante depicted the 9 circles of hell in the Divine Comedy as a huge funnel. The more serious the sin, the more people suffered from a sinful person, the deeper into the funnel of the earthly underworld King Minos will lower him, meeting the deceased on the 2nd circle. The poet Dante described the 9 circles of hell as a place where on each "floor" the souls of the dead are serving a penal servitude. The poem was written in dark ages when the human mind was fettered by the fear of purgatory.
Dante worked on the poem for a long time - from 1307 to 1321. That is, the poem has glorified the name of this man for more than 700 years. For literature, this is an excellent example of medieval poetry. The whole poem is written in tertsy, with a stylistic charm unprecedented for those times.
The poet describes all these circles of hell as very gloomy and cruel, as a person who lived in the era of Catholic despotism could only imagine. For general idea we will describe all 9 circles as they are depicted in the original source - the poem "The Divine Comedy".
Description of the first 5 circles of hell
In limbo (circle 1), Dante "settled" poets and scientists of antiquity who were not baptized. So, in fact, their souls do not belong to either the lower world or the higher one. In this place, the human soul experiences grief, but bodily torment, writes Dante, is not here.
On the 2nd circle, the souls are already suffering. They are tormented by gusts of wind. How on earth they were restless and sought comfort in voluptuousness, and not in spiritual world, and here they will forever be tormented by an unprecedented storm.
The next circle is the afterlife of gluttons and gourmets. They are doomed to rot in the incessant and vile rain. Next comes greed. This sin is punished by the fact that the soul of the miser is obliged to drag weights on his back forever and fight with other souls who are dragging the same bales towards him.
The last circle of less serious sins associated with intemperance and craving for material things is a circle for the souls of angry, lazy or discouraged people.
Circles of hell for the most terrible torments
The most terrible sins, according to the writer, are violence, deception, extravagance, hypocrisy and betrayal. Circle 6 is for false teachers who have turned human minds into lies for their own benefit. In all the "spaces" of the 7th tier, rapists are suffering. And circles 8 and 9 are for the most "refined" hypocrites, heretics, panders and seducers. As well as trading priests and alchemists. It is these sins that Dante condemns, and for such souls the eternal penal servitude in the 9th circle is the most terrible.
On the very last circle, in the center, is fallen Angel, frozen into the lake with the ancient name Cocytus. In his teeth are doomed to suffer such historical figures, like Judas, as well as those who betrayed Caesar, Mark Brutus and Gaius Cassius.
Truly terrifying and unusual describes Dante Alighieri 9 circles of hell.
Who inspired Dante?
Like every writer, Dante had his own muse. A girl named Bice (the name Beatrice was later given to her by a genius himself) inspired a talented young man only by her existence. He was so selflessly and for a long time devoted by all his thoughts to only one lady of the heart that the greatest work, like his other poetry, was written in her honor.
Many masters of the brush depicted this girl with the poet. The artist Holiday Henry painted the painting "Dante and Beatrice" (year of writing - 1883).
