Shop art print and framed art Dante et Virgile aux Enfers by Eugène Deully

Dante et Virgile aux Enfers (Dante and Virgile in Hell) is an oil on canvas painting by the French painter Eugène Deully, produced in 1897 and now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, France. Eugène-Auguste-François Deully was a little-known pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme and was sometimes allowed to exhibit his paintings at the prestigious Salon de Paris, as in this case: the work was exhibited at the 1897 Salon under the title Francesca da Rimini (Françoise de Rimini). The scene illustrates a famous passage from the fifth canto of Hell, the first cantica of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's masterpiece. The poet, accompanied by his guide Publius Virgil Maron, arrives at the circle of the lustful and encounters the infernal storm that sweeps away sinful souls. Only two of them are together, embracing, and they are the spirits of Francesca da Polenta and Paolo Malatesta, guilty of committing adultery when they were brothers-in-law and killed by her husband, Gianciotto Malatesta. Francesca is clinging to Paolo so as not to fall, while Paolo seems to be looking out of the composition. Paolo is wrapped in a brownish veil from the waist down, while a white cloth seems to stand out from Francesca, who faces the viewer with her bare back and soft, round buttocks. In fact, it is precisely in the bodies that the brushstrokes become concentrated, less mellow and more diluted. The volume of the bodies is very obvious, and the limbs are painted so realistically that you get the [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the academism style.

 

« Dante et Virgile aux Enfers » is kept at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France.

 

Find the full description of Dante et Virgile aux Enfers by Eugène Deully on Wikipedia.