Barlowe's Inferno

Product Information

Wayne Barlowe’s Inferno is an awesome visual work, taking us into a contorted landscape of the damned which Dante himself could never have imagined.” ~ James Cameron, director

He's the real reason we're here, his home city chosen by EA for the unveling of the game based on the first canto of Dante's The Divine Comedy. Which Barlowe, the Milton-obsessed Hell-sketcher, is now helping to realise in digital form: the renowned fantasy artist is working on character creation for the game. Neat. An Alphabet of Dinosaurs (1995): In which paleontologist Peter Dodson lists a dinosaur for each letter of the alphabet, with basic information on each. Wayne Douglas Barlowe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, painter, and concept artist. Barlowe's work focuses on esoteric landscapes and creatures such as citizens of hell and alien worlds. [1] He has painted over 300 book and magazine covers and illustrations for many major book publishers, as well as Life magazine, Time magazine, and Newsweek. [2] His 1979 book Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials was nominated in 1980 for the Hugo Award for Best Related Non-Fiction Book, the first year that award category was awarded. [3] It also won the 1980 Locus Award for Best Art or Illustrated Book. His 1991 speculative evolution book Expedition was nominated for the 1991 Chesley Award for Artistic Achievement. [4] Sargatanas – (from Barlowe’ Inferno, acrylic on ragboard) – A former seraph and now a Brigadier General and Demon Major of enormous power, Sargatanas was a hero in Lucifer’s War with Heaven. Since his Fall, he has established himself as one of the few demons capable of rivaling the Prince for control of Hell. God’s Demon is his story. There’s a lot of improvisation in this piece. I wanted to leave some of the organically flowing elements, especially around his metamorphic head, to chance, to let my paintbrush do the thinking, as it were. And I also wanted to let the paint, itself, flow a little more freely to enhance the sense of dynamism this character has always had in my mind. Some have criticized my decision to go in a more “painterly’ direction with the Hell pieces. To me it is not only a natural evolution for a painter to become freer and more expressive, but, in this case, the milieu does afford one the perfect opportunity to be a bit more evocative. It’s a case of adapting oneself to the subject matter. Compared to artists like Pieter Bruegel, Gustav Klimt, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Hieronymus Bosch or more precisely to John Martin’s Pandemonium painting, Barlowe falls into the category of fantastic glaucous painters, able to manufacture fear and fascination at the same time. The introduction of the book is followed by a foreword from the artist himself. Extremely interesting and compelling, you learn more about the inner motivations behind the Inferno and about the man himself.

Barlowe's Inferno (1998): An illustrated book depicting Barlowe's vision of Hell. Inspired by Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. This “painting” is a first for me. It is rendered entirely in Painter IX and represents my very first effort with that marvelous program. Starting as nothing but an experimental sketch, it took two days to render – a time that would have probably been double or triple that if I had used actual paint. For a very long time now I have been relatively skeptical about the ability of any computer rendering program to emulate the personal handwriting of an artist. I stand corrected. The Horned Dinosaurs (1996): Another collaboration with Peter Dodson, this one focused on ceratopsian biology and evolution.

We're sitting in the Milton room by the way," Wayne Barlowe confides, with a twinkle in his eye. We've just been talking about Paradise Lost, the English writer's 17th-century epic poem, and the defining literary influence on Barlowe's artistic life. Dante I read in college; that had a completely different feel to it, and I loved it for what it was, but something about Milton's anti-heroics and all of that was very appealing," he reveals. The filename for this is "tameable beast", so here's hoping.

Barlowe's inferno

Salamandrine Man – (unpublished – Painter IX) – I discovered a reference to the Salamandrine Men or Men of Wrath in an old book and was immediately intrigued. I decided to transform them into the indigenous peoples of Hell, there long before the demons Fell and the Inferno was populated by the damned. I see them as fierce fighters, tribal and semi-nomadic, hunting Abyssals and waging a constant battle against not only the extreme elements of the Wastes but, also, the demons and souls. Aware that their era is coming to a close, their heightened bitterness compels them to acts of wanton aggression against any intruders who stray into their territories. This “painting” is a first for me. It is rendered entirely in Painter IX and represents my very first effort with that marvelous program. Starting as nothing but an experimental sketch, it took two days to render – a time that would have probably been double or triple that if I had used actual paint. For a very long time now I have been relatively skeptical about the ability of any computer rendering program to emulate the personal handwriting of an artist. I stand corrected. God's Demon: A sequel to Barlowe's Inferno, telling the story of a demon who seeks God's forgiveness. Inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Our Gryphons Are Different: In Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy, griffins are fancifully portrayed as a species of real, albeit extinct, creatures native to Central Asia, which endured until at least the first century AD before dying out for unknown causes. In a nod to speculation that the griffon myth arose from early discovery of Protoceratops fossils, they are portrayed as literally being descended from a mutant strain of the actual dinosaurs, and consequently depicted as Protoceratops with avian wings and long, feather-tipped tails. Female griffins excavated extensive tunnel systems in which to brood their eggs, often bringing gold to the surface as they did, but only a very brave or very foolish person would have risked delving into a griffin's nest to get it. Of course, you can see it simply as a man trying to paint hell, but you can also see beyond that mere concept and enjoy the vivid criticism of today’s society. Indeed, he rapidly gets into personal opinions about the voyeurism of our generation, filling the void of our bored lives with murders and tragedies on televisions. All of this for what? To explain that hell is real, but it is our lives, not some weird place in another plan of existence, stating that “in an altered Manichaean sense, we are living through our very own Hell.” Though he confirms his “Miltonian” influences, characterizing his demons and those from Paradise Lost as “proud losers,” he also insists on the fictional city of Dis from The Divine Comedy, that inspired many of his landscapes. There is very much that is odd about this book. It's certainly a coffee table book but only a deranged, militant bishop would leave it out on the coffee table. It is not a guide, neither field nor travel, nor is it a photo-journal of a trip as, with only 22 full color paintings and 6 sketches, it would be a woefully incomplete one. Yet, at times, one is left with the feeling that Barlowe is on the verge of a new form of story telling, i.e., using a series of almost disconnected images to force the reader thru a series of emotions and conclusions leading to an inescabable denouement. Bottom line: if you like jarring images for your jaded visual palate or as Robert Williams put it, are a "retinal fiend", then buy this and buy it now! But beware, it is not the usual eye candy. You have to like your candy made of habanero peppers, gravel and meat by-products. Although, what I'd REALLY like to see is Barlowe get some more work done on that 'Thype' world of his.

NUCLEUS PORTLAND

Some paintings are about working out the details. This is one. The devil is in the details and it took quite some time to work out all of the motifs from a design standpoint. And then there was the time it took to actually render this piece – one of the longest rendering periods since the Wargate – about six months. But to be fair, I was doing film design work at the time and put this aside many times. Executing Hell paintings can be an exercise in pacing. After spending months completing very complex, detailed paintings I tend to gravitate towards simpler, more iconic compositions. This serves both to recharge my batteries and to force me to make more concise statements. To me the most difficult part of this painting’s concepting was whether or not to add a question mark after the title. It's claimed that Milton conceived of the idea for his great work in this very building, the Hotel Astoria in central Florence, the Tuscan city that was also the birthplace of Italy's epic poet, Dante Alighieri. As the first painting truly devoted to the Hell project this piece is a touchstone. The visual idiom that I created in this piece, from the colors to the archi-organic forms to the look of the demons, has found its way into nearly every subsequent Hell painting I’ve done. Eldritch Abomination: Barlowe's Inferno has the Abyssals, the native inhabitants of hell... yes, demons were not the first living there, they were cast there and hell already had a natural fauna.

The demons do come off much better, but many of them are more weird than frightful. Some do stand out, such as the Australopithecine demon, and one of the lesser demons whose clothes are made from human flesh (it is interesting that Barlowe nearly discarded the latter from the work for failing to fit in with his overall theme). Many, however, are simply too abstract in morphology to really disturb. Salamandrine Man– (unpublished – Painter IX) – I discovered a reference to the Salamandrine Men or Men of Wrath in an old book and was immediately intrigued. I decided to transform them into the indigenous peoples of Hell, there long before the demons Fell and the Inferno was populated by the damned. I see them as fierce fighters, tribal and semi-nomadic, hunting Abyssals and waging a constant battle against not only the extreme elements of the Wastes but, also, the demons and souls. Aware that their era is coming to a close, their heightened bitterness compels them to acts of wanton aggression against any intruders who stray into their territories. Barlowe took his visualization of Hell quite literally. The inferno detailed here is neither metaphoric (as in the popular-in-recent-years conceit of depicting Hell in the form of a demon-haunted Los Angeles) nor a cheeky updating of Dante (as is the case in too many modern Hellscapes to name), but a richly imagined landscape that, some borrowings from PARADISE LOST aside, is largely unique to itself. His first novel, GOD’S DEMON, was released by Tor Books in 2007. Currently, he has several major film screenplays in development, and the sequel to his first novel, titled THE HEART OF HELL was released in July 2019. 2021 saw the release of his retrospective Hell art book, PSYCHOPOMP."

Develop

There have been so many “evil” buildings rendered in paintings and for film that I was consciously trying not repeat anything I’d seen before. And I was also trying to beat the scale of the Wargate painting. I’m not so sure I accomplished that, but I am satisfied with its overall feel. (Note: I regard this painting as a work in progress.) The only problem with this work and with the subsequent Brushfire follow up is that they're both way too short for me. I could've used about another 100 or so pieces of art at least accompanied with the narrative work and been in hog heaven. This isn't just guffawing over the work, it really is a shortcoming, because you feel like you've gotten on a roller coaster that last 30 seconds. You're like, "Woah!!!! Awesome!!! Wait? Is that it? No, there's got to be more." What Remains– (unpublished – acrylic on Gessoboard) – As much as Hell is a place of unrelenting horror and savagery it is, too, a place of sadness. What else could a being once of Heaven feel than sadness finding itself in such an environment? And what more poignant, precious reminder of its former existence could it possess after its Fall than one of its own charred feathers? The Examination – (from Barlowe’s Inferno – acrylic on ragboard) – While souls are treated as a resource by demons in an unthinkable number of ways in Hell, a true understanding of them as once-living organisms on a physical level is absent. The fact that Lucifer went to war in large part because of them has created a curiosity that many demons find irresistible. The inspiration for this painting is fairly obvious: all of those great Flemish paintings of medical examinations, of doctors gathered around splayed-out corpses. Nearly all of the look of the demons was improvised invention. I had a rough to work from and then, brush in hand, “grew” the figures on the board with layers of detail. I often do detailed drawings before putting paint on the palette but this was not the case with this painting. I wanted to enjoy the act of creating these inquisitive demons and felt that being too slavish to a sketch might make them less lively. The architecture, however, is grand. His notion that the buildings of hell are built from the bodies of the damned is a brilliant idea, and the form of the architecture (which he terms archiorganic) do, indeed, seem to belong in a literal Hell.