Dante Alighieri

Ideas: Author of “The Divine Comedy”, and major influence on the zeitgeist of Italian culture, Dante Alighieri is as salient as it gets to the artistic and social evolution of Italy and much of the known world of his time. His epic masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy” tells the tale of a journey from Hell, through Purgatory, and finally to Paradise in the search of what so many hold dear, lost Love. Within the cloak of our protagonist one will find the Passion of the Christ and some stations of the cross. This visual program illustrates the struggle that Jesus of Nazareth vis a vis Dante; and all others deal with in their own iteration every day. To find Heaven, Hell or Purgatory one not need to seek salvation from a divine order or a “holy” book. One must simply pay attention to the world, to existence. The face of the figure in this pieces is your face. From an existential view, we all have access to these joys and these struggles no matter what we might believe.