Inferno XVII: The Face of A Just Man

Inferno XVII: The Face of A Just Man

Ink on paper, 2016

22 x 15”

In this canto, Dante and Virgil meet Geryon, the winged monster of fraud, who rises from the abyss to transport them downward, from the edge of towering cliffs to the eighth circle of Inferno.

*    *    *

Geryon is an ancient mythic character whose early appearance in Greek myth bears little resemblance to the 14th century monster Dante created for Canto XVII of L’Inferno. Often freely transforming characters from history and literature (King Minos of Crete, for example, in Canto V, is transmogrified into a beastly guardian of hell with a serpent’s tail) Dante’s poetic license never fails to deliver with absolute potency the moral lessons he most wants to convey. And, truth be told, it’s easy to accept that once a character enters the underworld, just about anything can happen. Kings grow tails and mythic Greek monsters change costume.

The story is about to dedicate itself to the world of sins collectively known as fraud, a particularly detestable offense in Dante’s estimation. The eighth circle features the Malebolge, a sequence of ten ditches wherein fester perpetrators of all classes of fraud: panderers and seducers; flatterers, simoniacs (those who sold ecclesiastical favors); sorcerers; barrators (corrupt politicians); hypocrites; thieves; counsellors of fraud; sowers of discord; and falsifiers.

Geryon is described as the “foul effigy of fraud,” and this is expressed in his chimeric corporeality: he has a reptilian body, lavishly decorated and resembling a middle-eastern carpet. His arms are hairy and a deadly scorpion’s tail is concealed at the end of his enormous body. But his most fraudulent attribute is his deceptive visage: “the face of a just man.” 

Throughout La Commedia, Dante integrates significant use of the number three in imagery, structure and narrative. Robert Hollander brilliantly discusses Geryon as one of the most cleverly crafted metaphors of the poem: “This embodiment of fraud is thus presented as the counterfeit of Christ, three-in-one rather than one-in-three.”

I really loved making this drawing—the scale of the monster is extremely exaggerated in my conception, much bigger than I’ve seen him represented in the precedents I researched. And, on a technical note, somehow the pen behaved itself (for once) and I was able to pull it off to my satisfaction.

Inferno XIV: The Old Man of Crete

Inferno XIV: The Old Man of Crete

Ink on paper, 2016

22 x 15”

A fantastic interlude occurs in the fourteenth canto of L’Inferno as Virgil revives imagery from Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, an image of a giant statue made from various materials, from precious and strong on the top to crumbling clay at the bottom.

*    *    *

After leaving the Forest of Suicides Dante and Virgil traverse the burning sands of the the seventh circle of hell. Their conversation is set aside for a time as Virgil relates the allegory of the Old Man of Crete, an image borrowed from the second chapter of the Book of Daniel, in which the great King Nebudchadnezzar is visited by a dream of a giant statue, metaphorically composed of various materials—strong to weak, precious to worthless. In Virgil’s description the statue is an enormous colossus, emerging from the side of Mount Ida in Crete. 

The statue’s back faces Egypt, heretofore the world’s dominant society, and looks to Rome in deference to Christian rule. As a symbol of humanity’s crumbling moral and political fortitude it has a head of gold, arms and breast made of silver, bronze abdomen and thighs, and iron legs. His right foot, upon which he rests most of his weight, is made of crumbling, kiln baked clay, a symbol of the deteriorating institution of the medieval Catholic Church. He cries tears (through cracks in his body, not as I have depicted it in the illustration) which on the ground below create the four rivers of Inferno: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon and Cocytus. 

This is my favorite drawing so far, in part because of the sheer complexity of the image I needed to make. I relied a bit on ancient conceptions of Nebudchadnezzar is developing the costume and styling of hair and beard (see below), and really enjoyed interpreting the various active aspects of the image, finding concise and iconic ways to indicate is gaze, the tears, the geography, and materiality.

Inferno V: King Minos, The Adjudicator

Inferno V: King Minos, The Adjudicator

Ink on paper, 2016

22 x 15”

The dead line up to confess their sins to King Minos, who encircles himself with his serpentine tail, the number of times it girds his body corresponding directly to the circle of hell to which each soul is destined. The Prince of the Lilies, from Knossos on Crete, served as inspiration for the costuming.

*    *    *

In one of the most unnerving moments of L'Inferno, Dante and Virgil observe King Minos holding court over countless souls who must report to him their transgressions before he can damn them to the appropriate circle of Hell. Dante often indulges in generous poetic license to re-imagine characters from myth and history, and his chimeric mutation of Minos from ancient Greek King to serpentine monster is one of his most colorful and sinister characterizations.

The Prince of the Lilies, a fresco unearthed at Minos' infamous Knossos palace (where beneath the floors lurked another hybrid beast, the Minotaur) gave me a great head start in imagining the adjudicator's flair for elaborate, peacock-and-lilies headdress and long, wavy locks.