Barlowe's Inferno
by Wayne Barlowe

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Book Reviews of Barlowe's Inferno

Book Review: A visually arresting, if VERY brief, "natural history"
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

The artwork, while visually stunning, has its oddities also. It owes nothing to Dore, Bruegel or Bosch and in this Barlowe succeeds in the almost impossible task of creating something "completely new" in his re-fitting of Hell. His handling, always meticulous, has become a vituoso display of textures and gone, generally and thankfully, are the sharp linear highlights and brushwork of his earlier works.

The images presented are neither hermetic nor hieratic and very approachable in symbolic content. While somewhat more impressionist than realist, the paintings range from landscapes to portraits. Yet, they are curiously without sympathy--the artist is moved to awe by the atmosphere of Hell but conveys little pity for its inhabitants.

In this, he matches Dante, but oddly again, gone is the divine logic of Dante's punishments. Barlowe's punishments are capricious and illogical. In fact, there seems to be a glaring logical flaw (something like the Daggerwrists in Expedition: how can the population be stable if the parent has to die in the birthing?). Unlike in Dante (and Niven and Pournelle's derivative re-telling) souls can be utterly, permanently torn apart or altered (morphed) until they are either laying about the landscape or are part of it. It seems like they can become so diffuse one wonders how there is anything left to suffer pain.

Finally, in the most inventive part of the book lays its most dissatisfying aspect. Barlowe begins to outline a logical ecology for Hell that uses souls as raw material, yet never completes it.

Summary of Barlowe's Inferno

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