I'm not sure why I chose this particular etching from Dore's Illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy, but it's probably something subliminal. Hmm. This is one of the pics showing some of the tenants of the middle ring of the seventh circle of the Inferno--the suicides. In Christian belief, those who take their own lives are directly usurping a sovereign power of God. So in Dante's version of hell, they're relegated to pretty nasty real estate. And they get turned into shrubs. Gnawed on by Harpies. The lost souls will not even be reunified with their bodies on Judgment Day--their corpses will hang in the branches of the shrubs for eternity.
I remember first being introduced to this book and these illustrations when I was in sixth grade. A girl named Keira asked me to come sit and look at the book with her in the library (I can't believe this was in the library)...the same girl who let me borrow the movie Seven a year later. Interesting friendship. But those images became embedded in my aesthetic...influenced my taste in the years to come...probably why I'm so attracted to print media.
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