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Rachel Owen
Illustrations for Dante’s 'Inferno'
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Format: Hardback
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See moreRachel Owen’s hauntingly beautiful illustrations for Dante’s 'Inferno' take a radically new approach to representing the world of Dante’s famous poem. The images combine the artist’s deep cultural and historical understanding of 'The Divine Comedy' and its artistic legacy with her unique talent for collage and printmaking.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
Rachel Owen's hauntingly beautiful illustrations for Dante's Inferno take a radically new approach to representing the world of Dante's famous poem. The images combine the artist's deep cultural and historical understanding of 'The Divine Comedy' and its artistic legacy with her unique talent for collage and printmaking. These illustrations, casting the viewer as a first-person pilgrim through the underworld, prompt us to rethink Dante's poem through their novel perspective and visual language.
Owen's work, held in the Bodleian Library and published here for the first time, illustrates the complete cycle of thirty-four cantos of the Inferno with one image per canto. The illustrations are accompanied by essays contextualising Owen's work and supplemented by six illustrations intended for the unfinished Purgatorio series. Fiona Whitehouse provides details of the techniques employed by the artist, Peter Hainsworth situates Owen's work in the field of modern Dante illustration, and David Bowe offers a commentary on the illustrations as gateways to Dante's poem. Jamie McKendrick and Bernard O'Donoghue's translations of episodes from the Inferno provide complementary artistic interpretations of Dante's poem, while reflections from colleagues and friends commemorate Owen's life and work as an artist, scholar, and teacher. This stunning collection is an important contribution to both Dante scholarship and illustration.
For seven hundred years, artists armed with pens, needles, and brushes have been eager to accompany Dante into hell. Rachel Owen decided to take her camera as well, and returned with images which she mixed with found materials and bold markers plus a few dashes of colour to create what seem like daring stills from a film noir of Dante's journey. - Tom Phillips
Rachel Owen's bold incorporation of personal imagery is faithful to the spirit of Dante's poem, to which she sends us back with a renewed sense of universal appeal. - Professor Gervase Rosser
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Rachel Owen has been highly praised for its striking reinterpretation of Dante's Inferno. Reviewers have likened Owen's work to those of Salvador Dalí and Robert Rauschenberg, highlighting the originality and freshness she brings to the classic. Her images invite viewers to engage with The Divine Comedy in a profoundly direct manner, enhancing its universal appeal and providing a significant scholarly and artistic contribution.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781851245703
Publisher: Bodleian Library
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 17 September 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Bodleian Library
Illustration: 52 Illustrations, color
Contributors:
- Edited by David Bowe
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 237.0mm
Height: 259.0mm
Weight: 952g
Pages: 128
Collections
About the Author
Rachel Owen (1968-2016) was a Welsh photographer, printmaker and lecturer on medieval Italian literature. She taught at Pembroke College and at other colleges within the University of Oxford. Owen mixed photography with printmaking and her work explored ideas of transformation using photographic screenprints.
David Bowe is an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellow in the Italian Department of University College Cork and co-director of the Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland.
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