This painting was done in the 19th century by a French painter named Gustave Dore. He actually painted for children's books and poetry collections and this was a piece of work he was commissioned for that was to go on the cover of a publication of Dante's Inferno.
What really drew me to this picture is that I wanted it to introduce a series of artwork I want to look at regarding the devil and hell. It is something that is a relatively new installment to Christianity and has fascinated Christians to no end. The concepts behind hell is so vague yet alluring that I wanted to look at artwork that was created in an effort for humans to explain to one another what it is exactly. Satan is also a character that doesn't seem to be well defined in the Bible itself and instead is found more in Apocrypha texts. I have read Dante's Inferno before and can only imagine this to be somewhere around the second level of hell in which the lovers are entwined in each other in a fiery tornado. The tornado leads down to the lowest level of hell where Satan resides with who Dante found to be the evilest of men - the men that plotted to kill Caesar and Judas. I therefore found this to be an appropriate picture to lead into the discussion of Satan and hell.
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