The Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy

by John Flaxman (Contributor)

Dante's Divine Comedy, one of the masterworks of European literature, has inspired artists from Botticelli to William Blake, and from Gustave Dori to Robert Rauschenberg and Tom Phillips. The great English Neoclassical sculptor John Flaxman (17551826) is no exception.
Flaxman's drawings for the Divine Comedy are published for the first time in this handsome volume. Famous for his designs for Wedgwood, Flaxman illustrated all 99 cantos of Dante's poem. The book includes the complete series of drawings, together with the preparatory studies accompanied by rhymes composed by Flaxman himself. A critical commentary on each drawing completes this magnificent book, an important addition to Dante studies and Flaxman scholarship.

Genres: Art

279 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

John Flaxman RA (1755 – 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several years in Rome, where he produced his first book illustrations. He was a prolific maker of funerary monuments.