Dante’s Inferno: The Descent into Hell
Journal One — From Mount Delectable to the River Styx
There are some stories you read.
And there are some stories you fall into.
Dante’s Inferno was the latter.
By the time I'd finished reading it, my pages were covered in notes. Dante had given me forests, beasts, rivers, monsters, cities, sinners and punishments — an entire world descending beneath my feet.
But I wasn't interested in simply illustrating Hell.
I wanted to understand it.
What fascinated me was the idea that Dante's Hell isn't random. It has an order. Every step takes us somewhere darker, and every punishment tells us something about the behaviour that brought a soul there.
That gave me the structure for my artwork.
Dante wouldn't simply arrive in Hell. We would travel with him.
We begin outside it, with a man who has lost his way.
From Mount Delectable, Dante meets Virgil and approaches the terrible warning at the Gates of Hell. We cross with Charon, enter Limbo, stand before Minos and then descend through Lust, Gluttony, Greed and Wrath.
And as Dante descends, so does the viewer.
The creatures become stranger. The punishments become harsher. The landscape becomes increasingly hostile. What begins as a journey through someone else's idea of Hell gradually starts asking uncomfortable questions about our own behaviour.
That's what interested me.
Because underneath all the monsters, flames and tortured bodies, Dante is really writing about people.
Desire. Excess. Anger. Greed. Judgement. Regret.
Things we haven't exactly left behind in the Middle Ages.
So this journal isn't intended to explain every line of The Divine Comedy. There are plenty of books capable of doing that considerably better than I can.
This is about reading my artwork.
Why did I choose that figure? Why is that creature there? Why that punishment? What did I take from Dante, and what happened to it once it passed through my imagination and became paint, steel, wood and sculpture?
There is an enormous amount hidden inside this Hell.
So we'll begin exactly where Dante does.
Before the gates.
Before the circles.
Before Hell has even begun.
Continue to Journal 2
Chapter One — Mount Delectable: Before the Descent
Before Dante enters Hell, he is lost.
And that is where my journey begins.
My first plinth captures the moment before the descent, when Dante is still very much in the world of the living, but the route he thought he should take has become impossible.
In the distance stands Mount Delectable, with the moon rising behind it. There is something almost inviting about that distant mountain, but between Dante and his destination lies a thick, forbidding forest.
I allowed the trees to dominate the painting deliberately. Their trunks twist around one another, their roots spread across the ground and the pathways disappear between them. Dante is comparatively small within it all. He isn't in control of this landscape; he has become lost inside something much greater than himself.
And even if he could find his way through, the path ahead is blocked.
Waiting amongst the trees are three creatures: the leopard, the lion and the starving she-wolf.
They prevent Dante from continuing towards the mountain. He can see where he wants to go, but he cannot reach it.
His Feet Are Still in the Living World
Look closely at Dante himself.
His feet are standing in lush green grass, dotted with tiny white flowers.
That green is important.
Dante hasn't entered Hell yet. There is still life beneath his feet. He stands right at the threshold, between the familiar world he belongs to and the extraordinary journey that is about to begin.
The great tree running through the composition helps me create that division.
On Dante's side is the living world, the forest and the path upwards towards Mount Delectable.
Move to the other side of the tree and the direction changes.
Here, the pathway doesn't lead upwards.
It leads down towards Hell.
And waiting beside it is Virgil.
Virgil Is Waiting
I painted Virgil in ghostly form because he doesn't belong to Dante's living world.
He appears almost as an apparition amongst the trees, waiting at the entrance to this alternative path. Dante cannot reach the mountain by the route he has chosen, so Virgil will become the guide who takes him another way.
But Virgil hasn't appeared by chance.
And beside him are three tiny clues explaining why he is there.
The Three Women in the Snow
At Virgil's feet are three flowers growing from a patch of snow.
They're tiny.
They would be incredibly easy to walk straight past when looking at the artwork.
Don't.
Virgil tells Dante that three women in Heaven care for him. They are the Virgin Mary, Saint Lucia and Beatrice, whose concern ultimately brings Virgil to Dante's aid.
Rather than introduce another three human figures into an already complicated painting, I turned each woman into a flower.
For the Virgin Mary, I chose a white rose. The white rose has a long association with Mary and gave me the qualities I wanted here: purity, grace and maternal protection. She is the compassionate presence at the beginning of the chain that leads to Dante receiving help.
For Beatrice, I chose a red-pink chrysanthemum. Its colour carries ideas of love and devotion, which felt appropriate for the woman whose love and concern for Dante are so important to his journey. Crimson also has a particular association with Beatrice in Dante's writing.
And for Saint Lucia, I chose a yellow gladiolus.
This one contains another little layer.
The name gladiolus comes from the Latin gladius, meaning sword, while Lucia's name is associated with light. The bright yellow flower therefore gave me an image of illumination within the darkness, while the name of the flower itself carries the blade.
But choosing the flowers wasn't enough.
I made them grow out of snow.
Why the Snow Matters
Look across the rest of the painting.
There is no other snow.
This tiny patch beside Virgil is the only frozen ground in the entire scene, and that is deliberate.
When Virgil encourages Dante to continue after telling him that three women in Heaven care for him, the imagery of flowers recovering after the cold stayed with me.
So I made that metaphor physical.
Against the darkness of the forest, three small flowers push their way through frozen ground. Life and colour emerge from the cold at precisely the place where Dante is being offered another way forward.
They aren't decoration.
They are three women disguised as flowers.
Virgil is the guide we can see, but those flowers quietly explain why he is standing there at all.
Two Ways Forward
The whole composition sits at a moment of transition.
On one side of the tree is Dante, life, the mountain and the path he cannot take.
On the other is Virgil and the path he must take.
Even the physical plinth beneath the painting begins to carry that journey. The little copper stepping stones establish a pathway that will continue through the sculptures that follow, connecting one stage of Dante's descent to the next.
At this moment, however, Dante hasn't entered Hell.
His feet are still in the grass.
The mountain is still visible.
The three women have intervened.
And Virgil is waiting.
The only way Dante can now move forward is to take the path that appears to lead in completely the wrong direction.
Down.
To find his way out, he must first go through Hell.
And so the descent begins.
Chapter Two — The Gates of Hell: Abandon All Hope
Dante has chosen his path and followed Virgil away from the living world.
Now there is no mistaking where he has arrived.
The Gates of Hell.
I wanted the gateway to exist beyond the painting, so I constructed it physically in copper. Flames lick around the top and down both sides, enclosing the image within them.
Across the copper I inscribed Dante's warning.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
It is perhaps the most famous warning in literature, and there was no way I was going to hide it somewhere in the painting.
It had to be part of the gate itself.
Pass beneath those words and we are no longer approaching Hell.
We are entering it.
Chasing the Banner
The first souls we encounter haven't even reached the other side of the water.
Look into the darkness and you'll see a great golden banner twisting through the sky.
Below it, naked souls run desperately after it.
They will never catch it.
Behind them come the hornets, chasing and stinging the bodies as they run. I wanted the whole scene to feel relentless — the banner forever disappearing ahead while the torment remains immediately behind.
The banner twists further and further into the darkness until eventually it disappears towards a tiny glow in the distance.
The light of Hell.
I like the contradiction in that.
We usually associate light with safety, hope or salvation. Here the distant light is exactly where these souls do not want to be going.
Everything is pulling us towards it.
The Ferryman
Then we reach the water.
Waiting there is Charon.
I didn't want my ferryman to feel remotely human. He is a demon carrying the dead across the water, and I wanted his appearance to announce that immediately.
His eyes are aflame.
His hair rises from his head in great golden flames, making him appear almost as though Hell itself is burning through him. Even inside his open mouth there is light — a glow coming from deep within his throat.
He doesn't merely live in this place.
He seems to contain its fire.
In his hand is his great oar, onto which I added a symbol of the Underworld. Even something as practical as the object used to propel his boat became another opportunity for me to embed the story into the image.
The Boat of Souls
Below Charon, the dead are climbing aboard.
I filled the boat with souls, packing them together until they become almost a mass rather than individuals. More bodies scramble up its side, desperate figures pulling themselves towards the vessel that will carry them deeper into Hell.
There is something almost absurd about the idea.
Nobody should want to board this boat.
And yet here they all are.
Charon towers above them, oar in hand, while the vessel fills with the dead and prepares to cross.
Beyond them lies the black water.
Beyond that, the distant glow.
And somewhere on the other side is the beginning of Hell proper.
Hell Begins to Rise
The story doesn't stop at the bottom of the painting.
Look down at the plinth and you'll find hornets and flames etched into the wood, carrying the imagery from the painting into the structure beneath it.
The pathway that began at Mount Delectable continues here too, but there is a subtle change.
It has started to rise.
The Gates of Hell sit slightly higher than Mount Delectable. It isn't a dramatic jump, but it is the beginning of something I planned across the entire sculpture.
As Dante travels further into Hell, the plinths and pathways gradually increase in height. I wanted the physical artwork to build alongside the intensity of the journey, almost like a crescendo, eventually reaching the great copper Eighth Circle before descending into the Ninth and Lucifer at the very centre of Hell.
So even here, before we've reached the First Circle, the sculpture itself has begun telling the story.
The hornets are beneath our feet.
The flames have appeared.
The pathway is rising.
The warning has been given, the boat is filling and Charon is waiting to take us across.
And on the other side waits the First Circle of Hell — Limbo.
Chapter Three — Limbo: A World Without Colour
We have crossed the water with Charon and entered the First Circle of Hell: Limbo.
And the physical journey has risen again.
The Gates of Hell were already slightly higher than Mount Delectable, but here the elevation becomes more obvious. The wooden stepping stones climb upwards, lifting the painting higher again as the sculpture begins its gradual crescendo through Hell.
Across the wooden plinth I etched swirling water, continuing the journey from Charon's crossing into this new landscape.
But Limbo is different from the Hell we might expect.
There are no great flames here.
No demons tearing bodies apart.
These aren't people I wanted to portray as evil.
The Valley of the Suffering
On the left of the painting is the Valley of the Suffering.
These are souls who have not reached Heaven, but not because they have committed some terrible act deserving punishment. That distinction mattered to me.
Dante's Limbo contains the virtuous who exist outside the salvation offered through Christian baptism and faith. I wanted there to be a sense of sadness and exclusion rather than wickedness.
Among them I placed something very small but very deliberate.
The Star of Bethlehem flower.
It grows there on the shore beside the suffering souls, a Christian symbol placed amongst people who cannot enter Heaven.
And then there is Dante.
I painted him in bright red.
Against the subdued landscape, he immediately stands apart. He is alive. He doesn't belong here and he isn't trapped within this world. The colour becomes a reminder of the life he still carries with him as he passes amongst the dead.
Across the Water
From the Valley of the Suffering, Dante must cross the water again.
Ahead stands the great seven-sided, high-walled citadel, itself surrounded by a defensive river.
The citadel rises dramatically from the water, its walls separating one part of Limbo from another.
Dante doesn't make this crossing alone.
He is accompanied by four great spirits, with the leading figure carrying a sword. I wanted their procession to have a sense of importance as they guide Dante across the water and towards the fortress beyond.
The journey through Limbo isn't simply from left to right.
It is a journey through layers.
Shore.
Water.
Defensive river.
Wall.
And finally, what lies beyond it.
The Scholars Beyond the Wall
On the other side of the citadel are the scholars.
I painted them gathered together, some playing chess, existing in a landscape that at first appears considerably calmer than everything we've encountered so far.
But look at the colour.
The world around them is muted green.
That was deliberate.
Compare it with the lush, vibrant grass beneath Dante's feet at Mount Delectable. That was the green of the living world. Here there is still vegetation, still landscape and still something resembling ordinary existence — but the vitality has gone from it.
I didn't want Limbo to be completely colourless.
I wanted it to feel like a world from which some of the colour has been taken away.
These scholars can think. They can talk. They can play chess. They have companionship and intellect.
But they are trapped here.
They cannot progress beyond this place, and their environment can never become as rich or as vibrant as the world Dante has left behind.
That, for me, is part of their punishment.
Not torture.
Absence.
They can remember, reason and exist — but something is forever missing.
Hell Continues to Rise
The plinth beneath them continues the story.
The pathway has risen higher than it did at the Gates of Hell, while the wooden stepping stones and swirling water carved into the base carry Dante physically onwards.
This gradual increase in height will continue as we move through the circles.
I wanted Hell to build.
The deeper Dante travels, the more intense the journey becomes, and the physical sculpture slowly rises with that intensity. We haven't reached the crescendo yet — we're nowhere near it — but it has already begun.
And Limbo gives us our first glimpse of something else that will become increasingly important as we descend.
Hell isn't always about fire.
Sometimes punishment can simply be knowing that something beautiful exists and knowing you can never reach it.
Dante, however, can continue.
The stepping stones lead onwards.
And waiting at the entrance to the Second Circle is the creature who will decide where the damned belong.
Minos.
Chapter Four — Minos and the Second Circle: Lust
Leaving Limbo, we reach the Second Circle of Hell.
Here the character of Hell changes.
Waiting for the newly arrived souls is Minos, and behind him we can already see the punishment of those condemned to this circle.
The judgement and its consequence exist together in the same painting.
The King Who Became a Judge
I painted the dead lined up before Minos, each waiting for their reckoning.
Minos is snarling down at them, enormous in comparison with the pale figures waiting beside him. On his head is a crown, because before becoming Dante's monstrous judge of the dead, Minos was the legendary King of Crete.
One thing that genuinely surprised me while reading Inferno was just how many references there were to Greek mythology.
I had expected the Christian vision of Hell, but Dante populates it with figures and creatures drawn from the ancient world as well. Minos is one of the first great examples.
I wanted both identities to remain visible.
The crown remembers the king.
The creature beneath it belongs to Hell.
The Tail Gives the Verdict
Coiling around Minos is his enormous serpentine tail.
This is how he passes sentence.
After hearing a soul's confession, Minos wraps his tail around his body to indicate the circle of Hell to which that soul will be sent.
I made the tail huge because it is effectively his instrument of judgement. It winds around his body and dominates the centre of the painting.
There is no courtroom.
No written sentence.
The souls simply wait in line.
Minos judges. The tail decides how far they fall.
Circle Two — Lust
Behind Minos, the punishment of the Second Circle is already happening.
The souls of the lustful are caught within great swirling winds, their naked bodies lifted, twisted and thrown helplessly through the darkness.
I wanted the wind itself to dominate this part of the painting.
The figures become caught inside its sweeping curves, almost disappearing into them. They have no control over where they are carried and no way of bringing themselves to rest.
That loss of control felt important.
Their punishment isn't something that happens once.
The storm never stops.
The Circles Below
Beneath the swirling bodies are the glowing circles of Hell.
I wanted them visible because Minos is standing at the point where souls are judged and dispatched into this enormous world below.
The light draws the eye downwards.
One circle beneath another.
One judgement leading to another destination.
And although the physical installation itself is gradually rising as we travel from plinth to plinth, within the story Dante is travelling in exactly the opposite direction.
Deeper and deeper down.
This entire painting therefore becomes a junction.
The souls wait.
Minos judges.
His tail coils.
The circles glow beneath him.
And behind him, the Second Circle is already raging.
We have moved beyond the quiet sadness of Limbo.
The punishments of Hell have begun.
And next we continue deeper, into the Third Circle.
Chapter Five — The Third Circle: Gluttony and Cerberus
From the violent winds of Lust, Dante descends into the Third Circle of Hell.
Here we encounter Gluttony.
And waiting amongst the storm is one of the creatures I spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to bring to life.
Cerberus.
Creating a Dog That Doesn't Exist
Cerberus was difficult.
A three-headed dog sounds straightforward enough when you're reading about one. Try drawing one that actually looks convincing.
I couldn't.
At least not immediately.
I made countless sketches because I needed to get the energy of this creature right. I didn't want three dog heads simply attached to one body. Cerberus had to feel furious, aggressive and genuinely capable of tormenting the souls beneath him.
Of course, there isn't a three-headed dog wandering around that I could ask to pose for me.
So I borrowed from one that did exist.
My own dog.
She was part Rottweiler and, unlike Cerberus, a most gracious model. I studied aspects of her physical form while trying to work out how this impossible creature might actually move and occupy its body.
Then I could begin turning dog into monster.
The Monster of Gluttony
My Cerberus is huge and heavy.
He has a great swollen belly, enormous claws and three snarling heads crowded together, each mouth filled with vicious teeth and great tusks.
Behind him rises a long serpentine tail.
I wanted his body to feel excessive.
There is nothing elegant or restrained about him. He is appetite transformed into flesh — an enormous, grotesque creature dominating the souls beneath him.
And those souls are being flayed by Cerberus.
His great claws tear at them while the three mouths snarl above, turning the guardian of this circle into an active part of their torment.
A Storm Without Relief
But Cerberus isn't their only punishment.
The whole circle is caught beneath a relentless storm.
Rain and hail fall continuously, battering the naked bodies below.
I painted the souls twisting together beneath Cerberus, their pale bodies almost becoming part of the violent movement surrounding them. The deep reds and blacks make this part of the painting feel raw and visceral.
There is nowhere comfortable to stand.
Nowhere warm.
Nowhere dry.
The atmosphere itself has become part of the punishment.
The Other Side of Gluttony
The second part of the panel is much quieter.
Here the souls are no longer writhing beneath Cerberus.
They lie prostrate across the ground, pale bodies scattered through a dark, bleak landscape.
In the distance I painted the light of the sun.
Again, light appears somewhere it might initially seem hopeful.
But these souls aren't standing beneath it.
They lie on the ground, trapped within this colourless place while that warm golden light remains far away.
The contrast was important to me.
On one side there is Cerberus, claws, teeth, hail, rain and frantic movement.
On the other there is almost complete submission.
Bodies simply lying there.
Gluttony Turned Inside Out
There is something particularly interesting about placing Gluttony here.
Gluttony suggests consumption, satisfaction and having more than we need.
But there is nothing satisfying about my Third Circle.
Everything has been turned against the body.
The great belly belongs to the monster.
The mouths have become weapons.
The weather attacks the flesh.
And the souls themselves end up naked and prostrate on the ground.
The excess that defined their sin has disappeared.
What remains is discomfort, exposure and hunger without pleasure.
And above it all is Cerberus.
Three heads.
Three mouths.
A swollen belly.
Great claws.
A serpent's tail.
An impossible creature I somehow had to make believable — with a little assistance from a very patient Rottweiler.
By now we are unmistakably inside Hell.
The plinths continue to rise.
The punishments are intensifying.
And Dante's journey is taking us deeper.
Next come the Fourth and Fifth Circles — Greed and Wrath.
Chapter Six — The Fourth Circle: Greed and Pluto
The deeper I went into Dante's Hell, the stranger its inhabitants became.
At the entrance to the Fourth Circle waits Pluto, guardian of the realm of Avarice — Greed.
And my Pluto is furious.
I placed him high above the souls in his chariot, glaring down at them as they endlessly struggle beneath him. He wears a spiked metal crown or helmet, and his body is covered in demonic markings and tattoos.
His mouth is open.
He isn't quietly watching over this punishment.
He is raging at them.
“Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!”
Above Pluto I painted the strange words Dante gives him:
“Pape Satan, pape Satan, aleppe!”
I loved their oddness.
Their precise meaning has been debated for centuries, which somehow makes them even more appropriate coming from this enraged creature. I didn't need Pluto to calmly explain himself. I wanted him to feel wild, hostile and almost incomprehensible.
So there he sits, spitting his strange words at the souls below while Hell carries on around him.
Why Keep? Why Squander?
Beneath Pluto are the souls condemned for their relationship with wealth.
They push enormous weights around the circle, straining their naked bodies against them, only to repeat the same pointless struggle again and again.
But Dante places two opposing kinds of excess here.
The hoarders kept too much.
The squanderers threw too much away.
As they collide, they shout accusations at one another:
“Why keepest?”
“Why squanderest thou?”
I painted those words directly into the scene because they explain something I found particularly interesting about this circle.
These people are being punished at opposite extremes of the same problem.
One group couldn't let go.
The other couldn't stop spending.
Neither found balance.
And now they spend eternity pushing great weights against one another, questioning the behaviour of the people opposite them while remaining trapped by their own.
There is something wonderfully human about that.
Everyone can see what the other person did wrong.
Pluto Above It All
I made Pluto physically dominant within the upper part of the composition.
His chariot has great golden wheels, while his body is pale and marked with symbols. The spikes around his head give him something of the appearance of a corrupted ruler.
Again, I was playing with the strange mixture of traditions I kept discovering throughout Inferno.
Dante's Hell isn't populated from one neat source. Classical mythology, Christian theology, history and Dante's own imagination continually collide.
That mixture fascinated me.
And by this stage, I was doing the same thing visually — taking all these different references and trying to turn them into one coherent Hell of my own.
The Way Down Continues
Behind Pluto, another feature appears.
A fountain.
Its water descends through the landscape, leading us away from the Fourth Circle and towards what comes next.
That water will take us towards the marsh of the River Styx, where the character of the punishment changes once again.
So even while Pluto rages and the souls endlessly push their burdens, the painting is already showing us the way forward.
The journey never really stops.
One circle bleeds into another.
One punishment gives way to the next.
The hoarders push.
The squanderers push back.
Pluto screams from his chariot.
And the water continues down.
Towards the Fifth Circle — Wrath.
Chapter Seven — The Fifth Circle: Wrath and the River Styx
The fountain we saw in the Fourth Circle wasn't simply part of the scenery.
Its waters continue downwards until they reach the marsh of the River Styx.
And here we enter the Fifth Circle of Hell — Wrath.
The landscape has become filthy.
The water is no longer clean or flowing freely. It has become a dark, stagnant marsh filled with mud — and within it are the souls of the damned.
Fighting in the Mud
Above the surface, the wrathful are attacking one another.
I painted naked bodies struggling through the mire, hitting, grabbing, biting and fighting, their anger continuing even after death.
There is something wonderfully circular about this punishment.
Their rage hasn't ended.
It has become their environment.
These souls are condemned to spend eternity surrounded by others consumed by exactly the same fury.
In the background I painted the great arc that Dante travels over, rising through the landscape as his journey continues.
And beyond everything is a distant glow.
It isn't simply light in the darkness.
It is the City of Dis.
Even while Dante is still amongst the souls of the Styx, his next destination is already visible, pulling both him and us onwards through Hell.
The Souls Beneath the Surface
But not all the souls in the Styx are fighting above the mud.
Look beneath the surface and you'll find faces staring out from below it.
These are the sullen souls, submerged within the mire.
I painted their words directly into the mud:
“We were sullen in the sweet air which by the sun is gladdened, bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek. Now we are sullen in this sable mire.”
I particularly liked the contrast within that idea.
They remember the sweet air and sunlight of the living world, yet now they exist somewhere completely opposite — trapped beneath a dark, suffocating mire.
Above them, anger explodes outwards.
Below them, sullenness turns inwards and sinks.
Two very different expressions of darkness occupy the same filthy water.
Dante Has Weight
Dante and Virgil now have to cross the Styx.
They climb into the boat, but I included a small detail that reminds us of something very important about these two travellers.
The boat tips backwards.
Virgil is a spirit.
Dante isn't.
Dante still has a living body, and therefore he has weight. His presence physically affects the boat in a way Virgil's does not.
I love little details like this.
Dante may be travelling amongst the dead, but every so often we are reminded that he doesn't belong here.
He is still alive.
Hell Reaches Into the Boat
The crossing isn't peaceful.
As the boat moves through the marsh, one of the damned rises from the water and reaches around Dante's neck, trying to grab hold of him.
Suddenly Hell isn't something Dante is merely observing.
It reaches into the boat and grabs him.
Dante, still recognisable in his red clothing, is caught in the middle of the violent crossing while Virgil travels beside him.
And towering above them is another ferryman.
Phlegyas
This time the boatman is Phlegyas.
I gave him an enormous oar, exaggerating its length until it dominates this part of the composition.
It stretches upwards through the painting while Phlegyas drives the boat onwards through the marsh.
The boat itself carries a tiny lantern.
I particularly like that little light.
It doesn't illuminate Hell.
It simply gives them enough light to find their way through it.
And there is a much greater light ahead.
The City of Dis
In the distance, beyond the dark waters of the Styx, glows the City of Dis.
That is where the boat is heading.
The tiny lantern illuminates Dante's immediate journey through the marsh, while the much greater glow of Dis marks the destination ahead.
I wanted the viewer to be able to follow that movement through the painting.
The fountain from the previous circle brings us down into the Styx.
The wrathful fight in the mud.
The sullen lie beneath it.
Dante and Virgil enter the boat.
Dante's living weight tips it backwards.
A soul reaches up and grabs him.
Phlegyas drives his enormous oar through the water.
And beyond it all, Dis glows in the darkness.
The journey is constantly moving.
One part of Hell leads us visually into the next.
By now we have passed through Lust, Gluttony, Greed and Wrath, and the physical structure of my Hell has continued to rise as the story itself takes us deeper and deeper down.
But the City of Dis marks another threshold.
The Fifth Circle is behind us.
The deeper regions of Hell lie ahead.
And Dante is about to discover that getting into the City of Dis isn't going to be quite so simple.
Beyond the Styx
And this is where I am going to leave you.
For now.
We began with Dante standing on the green grass of the living world, looking towards Mount Delectable.
Since then we have passed beneath the Gates of Hell, crossed with Charon, entered Limbo, stood before Minos, been thrown into the winds of Lust, met Cerberus in Gluttony, watched the souls of Greed push their enormous burdens and crossed the filthy waters of the Styx.
All the while, my sculpture has been doing something rather strange.
As Dante travels down, my Hell rises.
The pathways and plinths have gradually climbed higher, building the physical intensity of the artwork alongside the story.
And we haven't reached the crescendo yet.
Not even close.
Across the marsh, the City of Dis is glowing.
That is where Journal Two begins.
Beyond its walls, Hell changes.
And there is still a very long way to go before we reach the centre.
Continue to Journal Two: Beyond the City of Dis →
Brilliant Julia, scared me half to death! Loved it