Depictions Of Hell In Early Art
When it comes to specific artist’s interpretation of hell, it’s easy to see that most pieces are very grim. Artworks, and more specifically paintings, have many different perspectives. One of which comes from the artist, and the other from the viewer. If a viewer does not make the connections the artist has set up for them involving the setting, tone, or other characteristics of the painting, they may completely miss the meaning. Another important point about art is that it gives us a way to express things that are unknown, and things that don’t exist, and make them into material things. The fact that we can create things that aren’t physical into material objects is very amazing. In the art piece below, we can see that this may seem like a couple of poor people taking shelter in a run down structure, and without knowing the background on this work, it might as well be.
The painting “Hell, detail: The Damned” by Domenico Beccafumi is a late renaissance piece that depits the damned souls enduring pain and suffering in hell. Paintings like this help create a material object that carries it’s energy and meaning through the piece and into the environment it’s placed in. This piece of artwork displays Beccafumi’s perspective through the mannerism style, also referred to as the late renaissance. Special characteristics of this art style include proportion, balance, and ideal beauty. A lot of the mannerism style paintings are similar in the sense that the beings are all very realistic looking and have a great deal of detail to them as well. The mannerism style helps give the viewer a more realistic observation of hell versus in other depictions, like Jheronimus Bosch’s painting, “The Harrowing of Hell”.
This perspective of hell from Bosch has my eyes constantly moving. We can see that this painting is very dark and horrifying, with many small things happening within it. It still has some realistic elements, and is supposed to depict the Harrowing of Hell, which is explained as the “triumphant descent of Christ into Hell between the time of his Crucifixion and his Resurrection when he brought salvation to all of the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world”. I don’t think that Bosch painting seems to be very accurate in comparison to what the bible says about the Harrowing of Hell. There seems to be too much going on in this painting at once.
The bible uses many different but similar phrases to describe what hell is actually like. Here are a few of these examples: “eternal punishment, pits of darkness, and unquenchable fire”. These phrases are definitely kept in the minds of the artists when creating these pieces.
This painting by John Martin, “Pandemonium”, shows a red figure standing over a crater of fire in a place that seems it may be hell. Martin wanted to give off a very dark and powerful version of hell that would go with the idea of an “unquenchable fire”. This art piece is meant to display a place for “all demons”, as this is what the translation of the word pandemonium is. This painting makes me feel like Martin wants us to see the energy thats radiating off of this art work. There is a great inner glow that hi-lites the buildings in the background.
Art is an important material object because it has the power to change people’s opinions, instill values in everyday life, and translate ideas across the world. Art affects the sense of self, and how people perceive life and living. Beccafumi, Bosch, and Martin’s depictions of hell help people understand that there can be many different perspectives of the unknown. These paintings all share common characteristics of the renaissance era, while still managing to stand apart from each other. On a much larger scale, paintings can widen the perspectives of those who are more closed minded, even if they are unwilling to accept the concept, they know that the idea is still present, and even this can have a lasting effect on them.