Saturn 

Gustave Doré made this engraving of ‘Saturn’ in the 19th century, illustrating a scene from Dante’s Paradiso. The image depicts a stairway to heaven populated by angels, with Dante and Beatrice gazing upwards. Doré produced an abundance of illustrations for books. These were commercial projects, and the institutions of art such as the Salon often looked down on them. His illustrations to Dante’s Inferno were among his most popular, playing on the Victorian fascination with the sublime, on popular religious belief, and on the contemporary interest in medieval literature. The images had an enormous influence on popular culture. They were reproduced in many different formats, in Bibles, and even in advertising. Looking at the print today, one can consult collections of nineteenth-century periodicals, books and prints to understand the image’s role in shaping the cultural imagination of the time. Only then can we properly understand the public role of art.