Interpreting Dante's Inferno

An artist's take on another artist's work always comes out different. Since everyone interprets differently how they talk, write or paint about something they saw shows how they interpreted it. For example two different artists, William Blake and Gustave Doré, painted how they interpreted Dante’s Inferno. The artist's works were very different from each other because Blake and Doré had completely different interpretations. Only one artist interpreted Inferno the way I imagine Dante wanted it to be and that is Gustave Doré. Dante wrote himself into his own book as the main character. Dante in the book is kind of like the hero in a book without a hero. All focus is really on Dante and he doesn’t get scared while walking through Hell. Doré really
paints Dante as a hero while Blake’s paintings make Dante look kind of like a wimp. For example in Doré’s painting of Dante in the Forest of Suicides he paints Dante with a stern face as he starts to walk through the forest while Blake paints Dante’s face as nervous and scared. In Doré’s painting of Dante and Virgil being threatened by demons both men look straight into the face of the demons while Blake’s Dante and Virgil are hugging each other cowardly running away. So Doré definitely painted Inferno the way Dante imagined it.
Everyone has different perceptions of what they read, write or look at. Talking, writing or painting how you perceive something also comes out differently. Sometimes people perceive something the same way the original artist wanted it to be. For Dante he wanted himself in Inferno to be interpreted as strong and one artist really hit that on the nail and that is Gustave Doré. Although William Blake’s paintings are very nice they just don’t perceive the way Dante wanted to be.