abandon hope all ye who enter here...

I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW

SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT
I WAS RASIED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
PRIMORDIAL LOVE, AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT

ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME
CANNOT WEAR WERE MADE BEFORE ME
AND BEYOND TIME I STAND

ABANDON HOPE, YE WHO ENTER

i've been trying to work on some illustrations and i decided to do some illustrations from dante aligheri's inferno. i have been researching and seeing what others have done (i think the work of gustave dore is my fav, but followed closely by rico lebrun).

what attracts me to this project is the idea of portraying the torments of judeo-christian hell in a striking image. the challenge is, how do you put that much rage, anger, remorse, pain, madness, and regret into a "scene". is that possible?

in dore's version, he seems to go for it, but ends up with something that gets closer to frightening grandeur than anything else. lebrun's version is pictorial pain and madness. horrific figures that exist in contorted motions that can only be horrifically painful. pieces of the human anatomy glued together in a grotesque mockery of "G-d's image".

how do you top that?