Читать книгу The Devil's Pleasure Palace - Michael Walsh - Страница 9

Illustration to Goethe’s “Erlkönig,” Moritz von Schwind, 1917. A dying child and a desperate father fleeing seductive Death.

Satan Cast Out of the Hill of Heaven, Gustave Doré, 1866. The Paradise that has been irrevocably lost is not ours but Satan’s. No wonder those who advocate the satanic position fight for it so fiercely.

Mephistopheles in Flight, Eugène Delacroix, 1828. The fallen angel, his wings still intact, flies impudently naked above the symbols of the Principal Enemy.

Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: United with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels, Francisco Goya, 1799.

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, William Blake, 1805. It is not for Jesus to defeat Satan. Instead, that task is given to a woman, the Woman: Mary, the Mother of Christ.

Gretchen im Kerker (Gretchen in Prison), Peter Cornelius, 1815. Sie ist gerichtet! (She is damned!) Ist gerettet! (Is saved!)

In the Venusberg, John Collier, 1901. Wagner provides us with his own version of the Devil’s Pleasure Palace, the seductive erotic prison of the Venusberg in Tannhäuser.

Lilith, John Collier, 1892. “She most, and in her looks sums all Delight / Such Pleasure took the Serpent to behold… / fawning, and licked the ground whereon she trod.”