I think there is an intriguing polarization around Dante's Divine Comedy. That is, few people have read the whole book The Divine Comedy (more than 14,000 lines), but few people have not been influenced by its charm. Today, this interesting phenomenon is becoming more and more obvious in the world. Visitors to Europe have the opportunity to stop and admire Botticelli's 100 illustrations for The Divine Comedy, or be deeply shocked by Rodin's sculpture masterpiece The Gate of Hell. People who like romantic music can repeatedly hear the theme of Dante's Divine Comedy in the title music works of Liszt or Tchaikovsky and experience the duet of poetry and music. Countless movie lovers are thinking about the structure and mystery of the Divine Comedy in david fincher's Seven Deaths and Ron Howard's The Dante Code. It can be said that in the world, there is hardly any poem, or even any literary work, which has such a great and far-reaching influence on the artistic creation of later generations as Dante's Divine Comedy, so that Borges, a famous Argentine poet and writer, commented: "The pinnacle of literature and all books is the Divine Comedy."
Botticelli painted a portrait of Dante.
Divine Comedy and Art
Since ancient times, literature and fine arts have been inextricably linked, and in the cross-artistic communication field across them, Divine Comedy has provided almost a perfect and excellent example, leaving countless related masterpieces in various disciplines, such as illustrations, paintings, sculptures, etc., which have been talked about by the world so far.
As early as the14th century, when Dante's Divine Comedy was circulated in the form of a manuscript, there were artists who illustrated it out of their love or by the orders of powerful people. Since then, there have been artists who illustrated The Divine Comedy in almost every century, including Italian painters guglielmo giraldi, Botticelli and Michelangelo in the15th century, Italian painters Sabatelli and Pinel in the18th century, Swiss painter Fries in the19th century, German painter Koch and French painter Dole, and Spanish painter Dali and British painter Barton in the 20th century. Among all these painters who illustrated Dante's Divine Comedy, gustave dore is undoubtedly the most famous. He is a French printmaker, sculptor and illustrator in the19th century. He was invited by publishers to paint many world-famous works and became a famous illustrator in Europe.
Divine Comedy (Dole Illustrated Edition)
Today, Dole's illustrations still complement Dante's Divine Comedy and are regarded as "golden combination" by readers and critics all over the world. As the earliest literary illustration classic of Duo Lei, the illustration of Divine Comedy was completed in 1855, which is basically composed of black and white, with distinct layers, sharp contrast and strong texture. Whether it is a grand scene or a detailed individual description, he prefers to weave the surface and ontology of objects with extremely fine lines, and is good at expressing the light and shade of objects with the density of lines, thus creating a strong sense of light and three-dimensional sense. More importantly, Dole's illustrated works of The Divine Comedy have aroused great interest in Dante in French literary circles, and promoted the rapid growth of various French versions, critical works, special magazines and related paintings of The Divine Comedy.
Dante and Beat Lizzie.
In the field of painting, the influence of Dante's Divine Comedy is everywhere, which provides excellent materials for artists in murals, woodcuts, watercolors and oil paintings. Henry Holiday was a famous British painter before Raphael. He created the oil painting Dante and Beat Li in 1884, which is regarded as the most important work in his life. What is depicted in the painting is an accidental meeting between Dante and Beya Tredge at the Trinity Bridge in Florence (this is one of the only two encounters in their lives). Bei Ya Terri Qi was dressed in white, elegant and dignified, walking with his girlfriend, while Dante stood by, trying to hide his inner passion, and also revealed a touch of sadness because of Bei Ya Terri Qi's intentional indifference. The whole scene in the picture, as Dante described in "New Life":
Amid praise, she walked past,
But her whole body exudes humility and gentleness.
It seems that she is not an ordinary woman, but from heaven.
Just to show that miracles happen.
Her cuteness makes people blink,
A stream of sweetness flows into my heart through my eyes,
If you haven't tasted it, you will never understand:
Judging from her lips, it seems to be slightly emitting.
A soft atmosphere full of love,
It knocks on your heart and commands, "sigh!" " "
Dante's dream
During this period, dante rossetti, a British painter who was also a pre-Raphael school, was also obsessed with Dante's theme and created many unforgettable female images. In his masterpiece Dante's Dream, the main images highlight the heaven in The Divine Comedy and the famous story of Beya Trizzi leading Dante to heaven. In this painting, Luo Saidi created an imaginary world with complex symbols. In the painting, the green clothes worn by two maids in Bei Ya Terri Qi symbolize hope in a sense, while the flowers in front of the picture and the kiss of an angel in the center of the picture undoubtedly symbolize holiness, while the red dove on the right side of the picture symbolizes love.
Rodin's The Gates of Hell
In the field of sculpture, Dante's Divine Comedy has deeply influenced the creation of a generation of master Rodin (Rodin's position in the history of sculpture is just like Dante's position in the history of literature). According to the divine comedy "Hell", Rodin spent 37 years creating the famous sculpture group "The Gate of Hell". In order to express the life in those sports, he carved 186 images of constant struggle and self-torture for lust, fear and ideal respectively. Among them, there are both vigorous bodies and soft nudity. Their main images later became independent works, and The Thinker is one of the most outstanding works. Another world-famous sculpture masterpiece of Rodin, Kiss, also comes from the plot of Divine Comedy, in which Dante describes the love tragedy of Francesca and Paul. As a result, Rodin created a pair of lovers who despaired of vilifying the secular world, so that the moment of passionate kissing in the tryst was fixed as eternity. Careful observation of this sculpture shows that the skin of human statues is extremely smooth and soft, which is in sharp contrast with the rough rocks they sit on. A passion of life flows through the whole body of two people through a kiss, and the viewer has a dazzling tremor effect.
Rodin's kiss
Divine comedy and music
/kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, western music entered a brand-new romantic era. The music of this period has a remarkable feature, that is, it emphasizes that music should be combined with other arts except poetry, drama and painting, and advocates a comprehensive art. As a result, the title music inspired by modern literary classics has entered a heyday. Since The Divine Comedy came out, composers have been creating various kinds of musical works with this theme or background, among which Liszt is undoubtedly the most influential. This experienced literary lover has created many musical masterpieces with literature as the theme.
On the Christmas Eve of 1837, Liszt read the divine comedy Hell, and he was immediately attracted by Dante's unparalleled imagination. Since then, these thoughts and fantasies have been lingering in Liszt's mind, and he tried his best to express them. Finally, in 1849, I finished Dante's thoughts after reading: sonata fantasia (later called Dante Sonata). This is a piano sonata, included in "Travel Years in Italy", which is the last and largest work. This piano masterpiece begins with a famous triad theme (this interval is considered as "the devil in music"). The work does not show Dante's portrayal of the gates of hell, but rather shows the poet's prayer for these cursed souls to talk to him. Liszt's superb piano skills can be compared with Berlioz's application of orchestra: he created a symphony-like sound with the piano, which is a model of the combination of literature and music.
Liszt's Dante Symphony
1850, Liszt finished reading the whole Divine Comedy and wrote in a letter to Richard Wagner, "Just like Virgil and Dante, you showed me the way to the mysterious field of the sound world. I tell you with all my heart that I will present a work for you with eternal love. " This is the famous Dante symphony. 1857, Liszt personally conducted the first performance of this work. Probably moved by Liszt's affection, Wagner later married Liszt's daughter and became a much-told story in the history of music. In Dante's symphony, Liszt and Dante started a fantastic journey together in hell, purgatory and heaven, at the same time portrayed their own characteristics and attributes, identified with their own religion and beliefs, and drew their own self-portraits. It is worth mentioning that Liszt initiated the symphony, and Dante's symphony is an outstanding representative of this new music school.
Like Liszt, Russian musician Tchaikovsky is also an avid literary lover, especially Dante and Shakespeare. Therefore, Tchaikovsky was very enthusiastic about symphonic poetry. He followed the creative characteristics of Liszt, that is, he did not stick to the description of the plot, but took the theme of the drama as the purpose. As a result, Lao Chai has created a series of symphonic masterpieces such as Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Hamlet, among which Francesca in Rimini, which is adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy, is one of the most outstanding representatives. The form of symphony fantasia is highly consistent with the fantasy temperament in Dante's Divine Comedy. The composer described the tragic situation with Dante's Infinite Compassion, and made an intuitive musical illustration for this immortal poem.
1876, the czar's despotism suppressed Russian land. Tchaikovsky read the Divine Comedy in a suffocating atmosphere, which triggered his strong * * * sound, and the composer quickly wrote a masterpiece. Music begins in the cold clouds of brass pipes and chords, and the deep atmosphere brings people to the door of the gloomy and terrible hell. At the same time, the bass string and bassoon play a weak long sound after a downward decorative sound. It listened in horror to the sound of hell from brass music and immediately became Dante's lament in prison. After that, woodwind instruments and strings intermittently played a series of discordant semitones, so grotesque that they were like "groans of pain and cries of despair" in hell. In this large-scale prelude, Tchaikovsky described what Dante saw and felt when he went to the kingdom of the underworld with superb painting skills.
Francesca of Tchaikovsky and Rimini
The prelude falls, and the music enters the main body of the trilogy symphony. The first one is called "Cyclone of Hell", which is inspired by the print illustration "Cyclone of Hell" by French printmaker gustave dore. Lao Chai saw this unforgettable illustration while watching the Divine Comedy. In the slight vibration of the strings, the whirlwind suddenly rose and flew to the sharp flute. At this time, the bass string and bassoon repeated an aggressive motive, and the Lord of Hell led Dante into the bleak prison world. A cry of pain came from the woodwind treble: "The storm in hell never stops. Many ghosts are floating, playing and falling, sometimes hanging on the broken ridges and cliffs and crying."
The second part is Francesca's Love Song. The soft clarinet sings the voices of the girls in Rimini town. This theme contains a pair of lovers' memories of happy past. Then, this touching theme was changed three times, expressing the love between Francesca and Paul, sometimes tender and affectionate, sometimes passionate, just as the girl said: "Love, once upon a time, can't let the person you love leave." However, all the good things were washed away by the violent full string. With the violent attack of the timpani, the orchestra rudely played a strong sound-the tyrant's sword, and the beautiful couple fell down. With a big sigh, the sad harmony faded away in the silence of death ... Unlike the ending of hell, Lao Chai did not faint in the final ending, but slammed the door of hell for a pair of angry souls with powerful chords, giving them happiness and freedom, and the whole song ended in strong protests.
Divine comedy and movies
As a comprehensive art, film has become the most influential art form since the 20th century, combining drama, art, music and other art forms. Since191/the silent film Hell directed by Jiao Saipu came out in1,countless film and television works have been adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy, among which the most influential is the classic Seven Deaths directed by the famous director david fincher (1995). It is no exaggeration to say that it is through this film that many people first came into contact with Dante's Divine Comedy and the ideas contained in it.
Poster of the movie "Seven Deaths"
The concept of the seven deadly sins originated from Catholicism and was originally put forward by Greek theological monks. It refers to the great evil of human beings and belongs to the category of original sin. They are lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, jealousy and pride. In the serial murders in the movies, the deceased happened to be the people who committed these original sins. However, after a series of murders, experienced and calm police officer Samoser (Morgan Freeman) and hot-blooded rookie police officer Mills (Brad Pitt) are caught in the mystery of solving the case. After knowing that Samosei went to the library to read Dante's Divine Comedy (also a picture book by Dore) and learned about the Catholic concept of "seven deadly sins", the murderer's intention gradually surfaced. Accompanied by Bach's soothing and melodious "Aria on the G String", Samosei walked through the rows of solemn bookshelves, as if secretly competing with the murderer. It's really "listening to thunder". How many years have passed, this classic bridge can still clearly emerge in my mind.
Of course, this film has become a classic because of its exquisite ending. John, the murderer, killed Mills' wife (and the child in her belly) because of "jealousy", and Mills was punished because of anger (impulsiveness). The original sin of anger affected his mood and finally he had to bear the responsibility of killing. It is worth mentioning that Dante ranked the severity of the seven deadly sins in The Divine Comedy. Anger and jealousy are the two original sins second only to arrogance, and like a pair of twin brothers, they are also entangled in the movie. The whole movie, from the construction of the original sin at the beginning to the completion of the last seven deadly sins, has formed a subtle ring structure. Seven days of rain, seven days of murder and seven original sins explain the gloomy tone of the film. At the end, Somerset's monologue was impressive: "Hemingway said,' This world is so beautiful that people are worth fighting for', and I only agree with the second half."
Dan brown, a famous American writer, is also a big fan of Dante. The movie of the same name (20 16) adapted from his novel The Dante Code once again focused people's attention on Dante and The Divine Comedy. The English name of this film is "Inferno", that is, "Hell", which comes from Dante's The Divine Comedy Hell. In order to make human beings survive for a long time, the radical scientists in the film do not hesitate to launch a plague and "destroy" most human beings on the earth through the plague, thus ensuring that a small number of survivors can continue the human species for a long time. The basis of this theory is the Divine Comedy. Human beings who are injured by plague are hell, and only through hell can human beings reach the last heaven.
Poster of the movie Dante's Code
As a suspense movie, decryption is of course the core. Here, we follow the camera through the Uffizi Art Museum in Florence, the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul and other famous works with the strongest historical and cultural atmosphere in Europe. In this process, Professor Langdon (Tom Hanks) uses cold knowledge to solve the mystery step by step. Among them, a painting by Botticelli played a key role in Dante's password, that is, the map of hell. This painting completely conforms to the description of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. Its overall composition is like a big beehive with a wide top and a narrow bottom, which is full of miserable little people. In the film, Dr. Langdon is very familiar with this painting, and through some subtle differences in the picture, he has solved the hidden important puzzles.
Anyone who is familiar with Dante's life knows that he was made homeless by politics, but he is a hard nut and has the historical sensitivity of a first-class writer. He beautifully refused the conditions of the army leader, saying that he would never return to China in humiliation. Dante wrote: "I should return as a poet and wear the laurel where I was baptized …" So The Dante Code took this sentence as a mystery, and Dr. Langdon found the place where Dante was baptized-Sangiovanni Baptist Pool. After Dante's death, only the dead were allowed to return to their hometown. The news of his death was placed in an inconspicuous place in the famous scenic spot "Florence Old Palace", and this detail also played a vital role in the film.
Of course, no matter art, music or movies can replace the original work of Dante's Divine Comedy. However, it is still an important way to read the classics if we can get interested in Dante through these artistic forms with aesthetic feeling and enter the deep fantasy world of The Divine Comedy.
Proofreading: Luan Meng