This Painting Is Weirder Than It Looks. Here’s Why.

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This piece is called Dante and Virgil by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It was an attempt by the artist to make a name for himself by winning the highly coveted Prix de Rome scholarship. He knew that in order to win, he needed to take his art to a whole ‘nother level. So he brought us to the underworld. This painting is based on a portion of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy called Inferno. In the Inferno, he details himself traveling through the 9 concentric circles of hell with Virgil as his guide. We meet them in the eighth circle in a pit reserved for those who have committed fraud. Although stunning, this painting still didn’t win him the scholarship he so desired but just a few months later he won it with his piece Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes. And from that point on, Bouguereau would never make anything quite as bold as Dante and Virgil ever again. Thanks for watching!

#art #arthistory #dantesinferno #bouguereau #danteandvirgil #thedivinecomedy

correction:
I said Virgil died hundreds of centuries before Dante was born, but I should have said hundreds of years... Virgil died over 1,200 years before Dante was born.

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