Dante in Purgatorio : Emma Haworth, Sylvain Lefebvre, Hepzibah Swinford, Maxime Simon, Alex Rooney, Hans Frans, Alasdair Wallace

1 April - 2 May 2026

Overview

What a relief it was to rise from the pit I had descended to Earth’s surface, leaving that vile stench behind for the restoring breeze. I have been to the land of the damned and observed how the wicked are punished. I have seen Satan devouring the worst of them at its icy core. His kingdom is the vast chasm created by his fall from heaven, puncturing the surface of the Earth.

I have emerged out from that place to the Southern Hemisphere to see the mountain that is formed on the other side by this cosmic event. It rises to heaven, staggered in terraces, and along each are shades. They arrive from the land of the living in a boat driven by an angel who flaps its wings as a sail. For the vices they committed in life, they must purify their souls as they ascend through a series of trials according to the will of God. I rise amongst them, but of all these poor forms in this country of ghosts, I alone cast a shadow.

Completed in 1320, La Comedia by Dante Alighieri is the most detailed foundation piece of literature to explain life after death. His epic poem is immensely descriptive, and the attentive reader can paint a picture in their minds of the strange landscapes that our protagonist observes. The worlds that he conjured have inspired some of the most celebrated artists of the Western tradition. Sandro Botticelli, Eugène Delacroix, William Blake, and Salvador Dalí are a few of many who have illustrated his poem. The Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery is delighted to show the work of seven artists who continue this tradition into the 21st century.

This show is dedicated to the second of the three parts that make up Dante’s La Comedia, Purgatorio (Purgatory). Having visited the land of the damned in Inferno, Dante’s Purgatorio is a world filled with the souls that purify themselves as they ascend a mountain to heaven. Artists in this exhibition depict the landscape that they traverse, the obstacles they must overcome, and Dante’s place amongst them as a breathing form with a shadow in the land of ghosts.

Each artist has found a distinctive approach to address this theme across a great range of mediums, including traditional fresco painting, linocut, wood engraving, and oil on canvas. Some have reimagined Dante’s world in ways that feel incredibly contemporary, whilst other refer closely to the history of artistic responses to the epic poem. In some cases, artists have seen in the trials of purgatory a symbol for the challenge of the artist, who must purify their soul to achieve their best and most authentic work. Only then can they be invited to the land of Paradiso.