In his immortal poetic piece "Divine Comedy," Dante Alighieri takes the reader on an imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, symbolizing the path from sin and darkness to purification. The story has appealed to millions of mortal beings over the past seven centuries. The poet's literary brilliance has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for generations of artists creating Divine Comedy illustrations.
This tradition continues in the 21st century. Sandow Birk, a famous American artist and Miguel Barcelo, a renowned Spanish painter, interpret Dante's world with 21st-century artistic languages.
"As long as the human beings' evil deeds and wrongdoing are not uprooted, Dante's lashing-out at the evils is of practical value. As long as this world remains imperfect, people will continue to aspire for the Paradise depicted by Dante. All this lends opportunities for the artists to do illustrations for the poetic masterpiece," said Xing Xiaosheng, a well-known Beijing-based art researcher.
Xing has collected 400 Divine Comedy illustrations created by 100 or so artists from various countries over the past seven centuries and has his collection printed lately under the title of "The Divine Comedy in Art." The publisher is the Hebei Art Press.
This is the world's first ever attempt at putting representative Divine Comedy illustrations together in one collection.
Except for the Bible and the Greek and Roman mythology, no other book than Divine Comedy has ever seen so many artists, many awe-inspiring names, rushing to make illustrations for it, according to Xing.
It took Xing decades to collect and glean illustration pieces in widely different styles by various artists from different countries and ages, with varying understanding and interpretations.
The painstaking effort is an artistic feat in its own right. And he does more, trying to take stock of the artistic accomplishments by the illustrating artists over the past seven centuries and also comment on their styles and artistic languages, while stringing the pieces up along the chronological thread. The illustrations, therefore, make more sense.
In the collection, the reader sees pictures or sculptural pieces executed by such masters as Giotto, Gustave Dore, Sandro Botticelli and Auguste Rodin. The list goes on. To the surprise of Chinese readers, they find a Chinese name Li Shaowen among a host of predominantly Western artists who did illustrations for Dante's masterpiece.
And Li did his job well.
All illustrating artists are commented upon in the book.
For example, Xing thus says of Gustave Dore's illustrating art:
"His Hell is an interplay of light and shadow, his Purgatory something of a leisurely narration and his Paradise the true image of the chapter's melodious strains. His understanding of the Comedy was both accurate and thorough, which is apparent in his perfect and innovative depiction."
The Comedy illustrations that first come to the minds of the majority of the contemporary readers, including Chinese readers, are those done by Dore.
As for the illustrations done by Salvador Dali, one of the greatest art masters in the 20th century, Xing said that Dali's illustration pieces fell into three categories.
First comes traditional realism. The pictures are shrouded in mist and set in rippling waters. Then follows abstract impressionism, which is free and uninhibited without losing any detail and is unusually successful in the creation of the environment and context. Finally, comes the style of uniquely Dali. This is the most surreal portion of his illustrations and is the most innovatively bizarre of all the illustrations ever made for the Devine Comedy, in Xing's view.
Xing thinks highly of Chinese illustrator Li Shaowen's art, saying that Li, while applying extensively the traditional Chinese artistic language based on lines, he incorporated such Western artistic elements as perspective and shaking into his art.
Absorbing nutrition from his native Chinese culture and arts, Li comes up with Comedy illustrations that stand out from those done by Western artists, mirroring Li's unique understanding of the poetic masterpiece as a Chinese artist, according to Xing.
Born in 1938 in Shanghai, Xing Xiaosheng started practicing painting and calligraphy very young. He graduated in 1962 from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, today's Beijing Foreign Studies University, as a major in the Spanish language.
He has published a number of books on European sculpture in the Middle Age, French art history, Spanish engraving, and so on over the last two decades.
His job of bridging Western and Chinese arts goes beyond publications. He has planned and sponsored solo exhibitions of the world's best known masters including Cuban-born French Wilfredo Lam, French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and French painter Balthus (Balthazar Klossowski de Rola).
(China Daily October 13, 2006)
