Antaeus Setting Down Dante and Virgil in the Last Circle of Hell by William Blake
“In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood.”
So begins one of the most famous and complex poems in the western tradition, Dante’s Divine Comedy, an epic on the soul’s journey through the afterlife. Begun in 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before Dante's death, this narrative poem has continued to provide inspiration for countless artists—from manuscript illuminators to painters and sculptors from a variety of cultures and time periods.
Art historian Aneta Georgievska Shine explores some of the greatest of those works by such artists as Botticelli, Blake, Redon, and Rodin. Dante’s demise was seven hundred years ago, but by looking at the art he inspired we gain a finer understanding of the ways in which this poem has been received and interpreted, and has remained relevant.
10 to 11 a.m. Dante in the Gothic and the Renaissance eras
Portraits of Dante and images inspired by the Divine Comedy (Botticelli to Raphael and Michelangelo)
11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Dante and the Romantic Imagination
Henry Fuseli and William Blake
12:15 to 12:45 p.m. Break
12:45 to 1:30 p.m. Nineteenth-Century Transformations
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Gustave Dore
1:45 to 3 p.m. Dante and the Moderns
Redon, Rodin, Dali, Rauschenberg
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1 credit*
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*Enrolled participants in the World Art History Certificate Program receive 1 elective credit. Not yet enrolled? Learn about the program, its benefits, and how to register here.
