CATALEPTIC CRAYONS

Of all the illustrated editions of the Divine Comedy that I have come across, the one closest to my heart is Currado Malaspina's Beatrice In Bed.

His clumsy, irreverent drawings of Dante's beloved are so raunchy, so unbecoming of their original intent, so flagrantly personal that I am drawn to them with embarrassment. They bear no balm of refinement, their fallible formlessness are in stark contrast to the relentless musicality of the poem’s terza rima. Vinegary pigment, inelegant brushstrokes and text scrawled as if by the beak of a marsh cock crowd his sheets in a panic of dissonant misbehavior.

But beneath the work’s gassy astringencies there is a ripe, affirming tenderness that parallels the poet’s own grueling transformation. Few artists have been able to capture so vividly the Commedia’s imperium of uncertainty and incomplete redemption.

It's a pity that the book is out of print.