Barlowe's inferno
What explains humankind’s fascination with Hell: a fear of punishment, an intuitive sense of divine justice, burning questions about the afterlife? Acclaimed artist and author Wayne Barlowe—American Book Award and Hugo nominee, character designer for Galaxy Quest, Hellboy, Avatar, and other films—has sought the answers to these eternal questions, daringly undertaking one of the few mortal journeys ever made to the Underworld itself to bear witness to what he calls “the dismal reality of a punished humanity’s ultimate fate.” Deep from the bowels of Hell, Barlowe offers his own vision of the landscapes previously explored by Milton, Dante, and Virgil. His is a study in time and human history, capturing Hellish forms that draw on Judeo-Christian mythology, Medieval grimoires, Egyptian and Assyrian religious traditions, and the works of Romantic writers. Alternating pages of paintings and descriptive accounts catalogue the haunting, horrifying sights that populate the nightmarish terrain of Hell. Somber scenes shrouded in darkness and a confederacy of grotesquely contorted souls are rendered in vivid color as Barlowe travels through Hell’s landscape and ultimately to Dis, the Underworld’s cancerous capital city. Barlowe’s Inferno serves simultaneously as searing rumination on the nature of evil and human fate, metaphor for the cruelties and indignities suffered here on Earth, and ultimately as singular testament to the artistic and visionary power of human imagination.