Dante2021: ArtLab celebrates the great poet with artistic wallpapers

It was 1321. Basilica of Saint Francis’ bells in Ravenna were ringing out at dusk to honour the great poet Dante Alighieri. Seven hundred years have passed, but every evening  those same bells still “sing” for him thirteen chimes, as if they were singing his famous tercets. We join Italy and the entire culture’s world in the celebrations for the 700^th death anniversary of the great poet, Dante2021. To do it our way and the best way possible, we choose to realise new decorative proposals thanks to the ArtLab by Ambientha: interior decoration projects able to render homage to the great genius Dante Alighieri.

Culture on paintings… as big as a wall!

In quality of father of the Italian language he was the very first creative, with the Divine Comedy and the wordplay he invented, and therefore we talk about him with creativity. We bring Dante to everyday places so that, after seven hundred years, he can be part of our present again. With personalised recommendations for every request, Ambientha chooses to transform environments into exclusive spaces, whether they are residential or professional areas. We bring the great Dantesque history on the walls of literary cafes, boutique hotels, cultures dedicated areas such as reading circles and theatre foyers.

As to relive again nowadays the great journey of the Divine Comedy and its 100 cantos, from the meeting between Dante and his beloved Beatrice to the proximity of kindred souls like Virgilio. It is certainly love, for a woman, a thought or the great master of all times that moves everything in the Dantesque soul and in the entire universe. Just like in the last verse of the Divine Comedy:

“L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle” (Paradiso, XXXIII canto)

The perfect environment: the library

Where else could Dante Alighieri live again, deserving a place of honour, particularly during the celebrations for Dante2021? In shops dedicated to books and reading, bookstores, libraries or simply on the study’s walls of a home.

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An inspiration in such places, full of words and emotions. The graphic rendering of this immense journey finds its ideal space in environments where words reign supreme and are able to create a vortex of emotions, just like in the famous illustration of Gustave Doré (1832-1883), French painter and engraver, particularly famous for having dedicated part of his production to Divine Comedy’s illustration.

A celebration of Dante with decoration: the “selva selvaggia” with the Ambientha ArtLab

Those three bulky volumes have been a burden on school’s desks and in our rucksacks. Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso by Dante Alighieri were a source of nightmares for many kids and, at the same time, a source of inspiration for scholars and literature lovers. With the Ambientha ArtLab we aim to make them lighter and easily accessible thanks to the reproduction of art on wallpaper, so that they can really be part of our everyday life: as when we define “Galeotta” a temptation we cannot escape, or the use of “Senza infamia e senza lode” to describe mediocre people or things, without any particular quality.

It has to be the same for images, so that we can observe them every day, certainly not like a burden or cause of bored sighs of school times. The tangle of the Dantesque journey can be untangled if it is clear and well readable on a wall, just like in this Inferno “map” of the XIX century.

Dante within the art

The artists who dedicated their artworks to Dante are many, treasuring the strong suggestions that, thanks to the Inferno’s cantos in particular, are imprinted over the centuries of our collective imagination.

ArtLab by Ambientha, together with the precious images of Bridgeman Images, rethinks this deep bond through the artworks able to reinterpret the Dantesque thematics. Let’s start from the beginning of the journey, a moment where a sense of loneliness is present and when the right road to follow seems unfindable.

Like Dante: “Wanderer above the sea of fog” of Caspar Friedrich

It is not a “selva”, but the landscape in front of the wanderer is equally troubled and tormented. In 1818 the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich painted this picture, emblematic of the human soul in pursuit of his own life, struggling because of the fog and the precarious position, which makes everything harder. Like Dante, who in the beginning of the Divine Comedy says:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

(Inferno, canto I)

Friedrich’s painting is an emblem of his century but easily adaptable to our present. Symbol of a continuous research, through study and culture as well, it is ideal to decorate places dedicated to knowledge, like libraries or study rooms.

The “selva oscura” of Vincent van Gogh

In the collective imagination a more tormented artist than Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) does not exist. And this torment translates in his artworks that become a spasm of brushstrokes, that, just like sharp blades, “engrave” the canvas. In this case, the wood is the protagonist and the symbol of this difficult journey, even interior. As Dante tells us in the first Inferno’s Canto:

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
(Inferno, canto I)

We often met Vincent van Gogh prints in our ArtLab path because, with his colourful brush strokes, he is certainly able to transmit particular suggestions, even at first sight. His style is immediately recognisable and it has a great visual impact.

The emotions that Dante’s masterpiece is able to transmit to the spectator are many. With ArtLab by Ambientha we have brought you to the different interpretations of this universe that can find room in our everyday life. So let’s fantasise about this journey, but it is also important to learn to see it for ourselves.