Divine Comedy – Inferno 19

Description of Art:  Inferno 19 is part of Salvador Dalí’s celebrated Divine Comedy series, a monumental suite of 100 watercolor illustrations commissioned in 1950 to accompany Dante Alighieri’s literary masterpiece. This particular image visualizes Canto XIX of the Inferno, where Dante encounters the Simoniacs—corrupt church officials—punished in the Third Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell.

Dalí’s interpretation is at once faithful to Dante’s text and unmistakably Surrealist. In this work, the viewer sees distorted human forms, their legs writhing upward from stone cavities, representing their eternal punishment of being placed headfirst into baptismal fonts, their feet aflame. The scene is rendered in Dalí’s signature luminous watercolor technique, with vibrant reds, ochres, and deep sepia washes that evoke both fire and the claustrophobic atmosphere of damnation.

Dalí’s unique approach to the Divine Comedy balances Renaissance reverence with Surrealist psychological depth. His figures, elongated and almost boneless, are not just victims of physical torment but metaphors of moral corruption and spiritual inversion. The sparse background and airy washes create a paradoxical sense of lightness, allowing the horror of the scene to unfold in a dreamlike yet chilling clarity.

This piece is a powerful example of Dalí’s late-career engagement with spirituality and classical literature. It bridges centuries of artistic tradition, reinterpreting Dante’s moral vision through Dalí’s lens of mysticism, symbolism, and modernity.