Dante, Doré, and the Divine Carboncino

I'm sitting awkwardly in my small home studio which is floored in light yellow carpeting - not at all conducive to working in charcoal, let alone any other dry or wet medium. Tomorrow is Tuesday and, after an uneventful four-day weekend in honor of deceased presidents, it is also a work day. There is laundry to put away, there are dishes to clean, a paltry 'lawn' to be mowed. Christmas decorations still adorn the mantle in late February. When did I last clean the gutters? No idea.

Why, God, why am I starting such a massive project when there is so much else to be done?

Tough-yet-irrelevant questions aside, I’ve always had a soft spot for The Italian Poet’s epic ever since I read Purgatorio for a class in college. Though I’m not particularly a spiritual or literary giant by any means, I find the organizational structure which Dante invokes to describe the various levels of eternity quite fascinating. With 100 Cantos spread about the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, there should be enough literal (and allegorical) imagery to keep me occupied for quite some time. Now for a starting point…

Ever since the late 1800s one hasn’t been able to talk about the Divine Comedy without conjuring images of Gustave Doré’s famous engravings. Indeed, most illustrated copies of Dante’s Divine Comedy that you can buy seem to come bearing gifts of black and white etchings exclusively by the French artist. Doré just so happens to be another dead person whom I admire for his talent and creative genius, which just makes me SO happy that both he and Dante were able to collaborate (albeit 600 years apart) on this amazing project.

So that brings us to “Carboncino”, the Italian word for “Charcoal”. I love working in charcoal. I know lots of people hate it, but I love the stuff. It’s messy, dark, it gets ALL over the place. It’s a versatile medium which, most importantly, can be used quickly. If I’m going to be illustrating 100 Cantos, I need something that I can produce works with on a bi-weekly basis. Even so, at 2 works per week, it would take me a whole year to illustrate the entire Divine Comedy! Realistically, however, the project will take longer as I plan to take some breaks here and there, and some weeks may only see one Canto finished. I’m not worried about the length – It will be good to have something enjoyable to work on. In between, I’ll be improving my writing skills, reading some classic literature, learning more about working in a medium that I love, and at the end of it all I’ll have a great portfolio piece!

Now I'm off to sketch the stars.