Art, Symbol & Imagination
A voice within the smoke
A lightly draped figure faces two robed travellers amid rolling banks of smoke. A bare rock at the left gives the obscured meeting a small point of stability. The caption asks who is moving through the smoke while still belonging to mortal time. Visibility becomes the difficulty of the encounter: bodies emerge from a medium that conceals their surroundings. The plate opens the exchange with Marco Lombardo without turning the surrounding cloud into a view of another landscape.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "A voice within the smoke" [editorial title]. In Purgatory and Paradise: The Vision of Dante, Dante Alighieri; translated by Henry Francis Cary; illustrated by Gustave Doré. New edition, 1901, 1901, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 98. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/dante-dore-97
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Source plate inspected individually; printed canto and lines checked independently of binding position. Editorial title; original scan tone retained.
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Purgatory and Paradise: The Vision of DanteDante Alighieri; translated by Henry Francis Cary; illustrated by Gustave Doré1901More from this book
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Gustave Doré (design). A voice within the smoke. Purgatory and Paradise: The Vision of Dante. Scan leaf 98. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/dante-dore-97