Inferno XXVI: Bifurcations

Inferno XXVI: Ulysses and Diomedes

Ink on paper, 2019

22 x 15”

Inferno XXVI hosts a dramatic encounter between Dante, Virgil and the doubly-entrapped shades of Ulysses and Diomedes, who are bound together in a single flame. (fig. 16) Theirs is the most conspicuous of many thousands that feebly illuminate the terrain, and they are imprisoned within a forked tongue of fire for various sins: primarily the ingenious plot to inhabit the Trojan Horse with insidious raiders, and plotting the ingenious Trojan Horse raid, stealing the cherished cult statue of Pallas Athen, the talisman of Troy. 

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The administrative work I've been doing for the past 2.5 years has been rewarding in many ways. I have certainly learned a tremendous lot about how the college operates, and have gotten to know the work of many extraordinary people. Most of all, I've been honored with the privilege to support the continuation of their good work, as teachers and artists. 

It's been a little tough to switch gears from full-time dean—signing papers, settling disagreements and sitting in meetings—to resourceful artist with only a couple of spare hours a night to invest in the latter. The nature of the project I am doing hasn't allowed a ton of time to just sit and draw, to make mistakes, to start over.  A drawing in this series can take days to complete, from sketch to finish, and nabbing an hour here and there isn't really the way to accomplish that. Still, I can only blame myself, because I've never learned to flip the switch from work to artistic pursuit, from left-to right-brained immersion on such short order. The job will end on 30 June 2020, however, as I have decided to forego renewal of the contract for another term, and return to teaching and studio work.

I had not been able to return to the series of drawings in a full year, due to work commitments, and I produced this drawing of Ulysses and Diomedes while teaching in Rome in summer 2019. Through an odd set of coincidences, I happened to visit the beach at Sperlonga, near Rome, and learned that the sculpture of Ulysses that I used as reference for his face in this drawing was originally located in the grotto of Tiberius, located only steps from my spot on the beach; and a later visit to the Vatican Museums brought me face-to-face with the sculpture of Athena that I used for another significant element of the image, the Palladium. Synchronicity endures. My life and that of Dante are intertwined in astonishing ways, and my process is likewise a humble mirror of his narrative—both personal and poetic.

Inferno XXV: The Pleasures of Research

Inferno XXV: Cacus, The Centaur
Ink on Paper, 2018
22 x 15"

For a moment in Inferno XXV, Dante catches sight of the monster Cacus, an Ancient Greek monster who is embodied as a centaur in Dante's conception. A spectacular horror, we are introduced to Cacus, insane with rage and covered with snakes and a winged, fire-breathing dragon on his back. 

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Herein lies one of the most profound examples of the pleasures that research has brought me in pursuit of this project. I have discovered a great many things in while preparing myself for this work, and again in writing about it.

I lived for a time in Rome, walking regularly by the beautiful, round temple of Hercules Victor, a referential tribute to his defeat of Cacus, who not only stole the cattle of Hercules but who had a terrible history of eating human flesh and tacking the heads of his victims to the entrance to his cave. Though a character from Greek mythology, he was said to have lived in pre-Roman times, near the site of Hercules' temple. He was not a centaur, but your garden variety, fire-breathing monster—the terror of the neighborhood until Hercules set him straight.

Now, I walked by this spot all the time because it was on the edge of my neighborhood, and I was well aware of its association with Hercules, but only through research for this drawing did I discover so many dimensions of its history—the tether to Greek myth, enduring in Roman culture; the history of the site as the ancient cattle market in Rome; and the engagement of one of my favorite boyhood heroes, the brutal genius—half-god, half-man—named Hercules.

Inferno XXIV: Demise and Deja Vu

Inferno XXIV: Vanni Fucci's Horrific Cycle

Ink on Paper, 2018
22 x 15"

We remain in the eighth circle of Hell, and here we meet the thief, Vanni Fucci di Pistoia, who is—in the tradition of Sisyphus and Prometheus—destined for all eternity to die and be reborn in an endless cycle of terror and pain.

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Vanni Fucci is one of the more vulgar characters in Dante's Hell, and he suffers one of the most diabolical and exhaustively terrible fates in the story. Before boldly directing crude gestures to God, he explains to Dante that he once stole from his church, only to blame it on someone else, who was put to death in his stead. Without fail Vanni Fucci is now ensnared in a cycle of strangling entanglement with snakes, who bite him ferociously. Immediately, he bursts into flame and disintegrates, turning to ash—only to be immediately reborn in order to endure the same terrible fate all over again. This happens forever.

The mythic correlation to both Sisyphus and Prometheus is striking, with the latter in particular bearing a significant similarity—both symbolically and literally— to Vanni Fucci's predicament. In both stories the victim is a thief who, having stolen from the divine, must not only endure torture for all time, but must repeat his own history of terror and pain. There may be no more harrowing fate than to be subject to death, with the guarantee that it will happen over again. PTSD to the max.

Inferno XXIII: Cloaks of Gold and Lead

Inferno XXIII: The Hypocrite Friars

Ink on paper, 2019

22 x 15”

After squeaking by the infuriated demons of the last scene, whose raging is carried forth in Canto XXIII, Dante and Virgil encounter a solemn group of friars, whose cloaks of glittering gold are lined with dense lead. These are hypocrites, destined to bear their embattled duplicity as garments.

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Perhaps one of the most brilliant moments of contrapasso in L'Inferno happens here, when Dante and Virgil engage in dialogue with a group of treacherous friars who embody one of Dante's greatest peeves: hypocrisy. Two of the more politically empowered of these friars, Godenti Catalano and Loderingo, favored the Guelphs in Florence, and this resulted in the destruction of Ghibelline (specifically, Uberti) homes in the Gardingo neighborhood of Florence. 

Dante's genius for "just-dessertism" is in full flower in Canto XXIII, as he cloaks these unfortunate, once "jovial" friars in glimmering gold, presenting an outward appearance of brilliance and opulence, while internally miring them in lead linings. He takes delight in punishing his transgressive cast of characters with such exquisite contrapassi. Never has "the punishment fits the crime" been more aptly applied.