Canto VIII: Circle Five, The Styx, The Wrathful; Circle Six, Dis, Capital of Hell, The Fallen Angels from the series Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante's Inferno
Robert Rauschenberg
American, 1925–2008
1959-60
A mixed-media drawing by Robert Rauschenberg from his Dante series that blends solvent-transfer images with pencil, watercolor, gouache, and crayon to conjure the smoky, fragmented moods of the Inferno.
At first glance a pale, bruised square sits inside a ghostly gray border—layers of scumbled graphite, clouded washes of salmon, yellow and soot, hatched marks and a single washed red blot coalesce into a rubbed, palimpsest-like surface that feels both fragile and volatile.
Part of Rauschenberg’s 1959–60 Dante illustrations, it helped move drawing toward collage and printmaking methods—using solvent transfer and painterly marks to make found imagery and narrative appear tactile, layered, and psychologically charged in postwar art.
Medium
Solvent transfer drawing, pencil, watercolor, gouache, and crayon on paper
Dimensions
14 1/2 × 11 1/2" (36.8 × 29.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Given anonymously
Accession
346.1963.8
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
