It’s been three months since I posted Paintings of Hell, and yet it remains the most viewed post on vince’s ear. I don’t know if it’s your fascination with the morbid, an obsession with the macabre, or anxiety of a possible future residence. Either way it seems you can’t get enough of viewing the eternal and tortured plight of the doomed. So, it is with heartfelt satisfaction I present to you the man of the hour of judgment, your fiery host…
The DEVIL
Call him the devil, Satan, Lucifer, the serpent, Beelzebub, or diabolos. Just don’t call him when you want a favor- you’ll regret it later. This diabolic character is known through various religions and folklore as the tempter of man, and offers his help, if only you should give up your everlasting soul. Even if you rationalize, “Well I wasn’t using it,” you will eventually want it back, I’m sure.
Satan rules over his infernal prison, and is envisioned to be a scaly and blood red beast, usually with horns, and sometimes holding an implement of pain, such as a pitchfork. Legend has it that he also frequents the world of the living harassing and tempting its residents in various ways.
There is no lack of imagination when it comes to illustrating the Prince of Darkness.
Medieval Western art is rich with biblical themes, particularly in churches when stories were told to the illiterate through art. The masses had to be kept in line with fear of the afterlife. This lasted well into the Renaissance as we see in Michael Pacher’s Saint Augustine and the Devil.
This is Hans Baldung’s representation of Eve and the Serpent With Death. It can be argued that the bible doesn’t say exactly who the serpent is, but it is generally thought to be a symbol of Satan. Baldung was known for his fantastic depictions of witches, the occult, and Death.
Han Memling’s demon is similar to the other two devils, in that they are not as ferocious and powerful, but small, wicked. This hellion dances on the souls of the dead as they are fed into giant beast’s hungry mouth. In the bible, Satan is said to be a great dragon.
Possibly the best known painter of Hell in the Renaissance is Hieronymus Bosch. In the Garden of Earthly Delights, the sins of Man lead him directly to Hell, on the right panel. The image on the right above is a detail of Satan in the form of a half man, half bird hybrid devouring people only to defecate them out into a pit below.
This is Michael Pacher’s Christ in Limbo. He is tormented by a Devil similar to his earlier depiction.
As long as we are considering the serpent in the book of Genesis as the Devil, this is The Fall by Hugo van der Goes. It is much more serene than our other Devil pictures, and shows the moment Eve gives into the temptation and falls from the grace of God. A slimy and grotesque serpent (who still had limbs before God amputates them) looks on with a human face.
Another renaissance painter, Luca Signorelli, is known for religious paintings. Here we see a disturbing image of the Last Judgment, with Satan whispering in the ear of Christ.
Raphael gives us our first image where the tables have turned, with Saint Michael stomping and impaling the Beast.
Italian Rococo painter Carrado Giaquinto shows an interesting Devil as he transforms from the angel Lucifer and is cast down to be the epitome of evil for eternity.
Of course, we can’t forget William Blake’s magnificent watercolor paintings showing the Beast in his most triumphant settings. This is the Great Red Dragon series.
William Blake also created Satan Inflicts Boils On Job, from the story that God sent Satan to inflict hardship on Job to test his faith.
Jan Matejko was a Polish painter of the nineteenth century who painted Satan’s Triumph, with a grim vision of mankind’s defeat to evil.
The most recent of these paintings of Satan is the most colorful and beautiful in my opinion. This is The Treasures of Satan by Belgian painter Jean Delville. Delville was a symbolist painter and occult, and died in 1953. His painting shows a golden mass of flesh over which a beast/man hybrid floats ready to consume the souls of the people.
See also Paintings of Hell,
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