The Divine Comedy: 2. Purgatorio

Location

Country: Holy See
City: Vatican City
Place: British Embassy

Rosemary Bisset’s prints visually complement Dante’s 'Divine Comedy' (1310–1314), a classic of world literature. Dante’s narrative poem is divided into three sections, 'Inferno', 'Purgatorio', and 'Paradiso', and charts Dante’s journey from darkness to light, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In these prints. Bisset has portrayed the circles of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, through which Dante moves. Each print is framed with two mirrors at the bottom and side, giving the impression of complete circles.

Inferno looks like a geological cross-section, with plumes of lava rising up to the River of Blood, and an increasingly black core. Bisset’s Purgatorio, Dante’s island mountain, seems much more of a landscape, with the sea lying beyond it. Virgil leaves Dante, to be met by Beatrice, his muse, at the threshold of Paradise, which in Bisset’s interpretation, looks like a segment from a precious stone or crystal. The name of Beatrice is delicately transcribed onto this print, as are all the other names of those who inhabit Dante’s circles. Beatrice then guides Dante through ascending levels of paradise to glimpse the glory of God. 

The 'Divine Comedy' has been the subject of artistic representation, both narrative and more abstract, for centuries. Among the artists who have illustrated the poem are Sandro Botticelli and William Blake.

Rosemary Bisset was born in Plymouth in 1948. She studied at the College of Art in Dundee and at the Royal College of Art. Her works include drawings, prints and literary illustrations after works by Dante, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes and Dylan Thomas. She was awarded numerous printmaking and lithography prizes as well as travelling scholarships. She had solo shows at Queenswood Cafe, London in 2017; The Petit Coin Cafe, London in 2015, and the Barbican in 2002, among others.

Places

Subjects

Alighieri, Dante, abstract, text-based work

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, hand-coloured lithograph

Artist

Rosemary Bisset (1948 - )

Title

The Divine Comedy: 2. Purgatorio

Date

1977

Medium

Hand-coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Whitechapel Art Gallery, October 1977

Inscription

br: The Divine Comedy 2 Purgatorio. R. Bisset 77.

GAC number

13480