Satan in Art and Images

Satan, Sin and Death (c. 1792, Etching) - James Barry

Barry made this drawing between 1792 and 1795 as he planned a series of large etchings inspired by Milton’s "Paradise Lost." Although the ambitious scheme was never fully realized, this composition was published as an etching, and demonstrates Barry's deep engagement with the sublime. The subject comes from Book II, 630-814 of the poem, lines that describe Satan’s arrival at the Gates of Hell, after being cast from Heaven. Finding the entrance guarded by Death, he aims his spear at the skeletal figure, as the kneeling, bare-breasted figure of Sin attempts to intercede--Satan does not yet recognize his ghastly opponent to be his son, conceived in an incestuous liason with his daughter Sin. Barry’s obsession with the the sublime had been encouraged by Edmund Burke, an early mentor whose 1757 treatise on the subject states that: “terror…in all cases [is]…the ruling principle of the sublime." Milton's triad of fallen heroic male, monstrous female and skeletal wraith offered the artist s a heady combination of horrific drama and symbolic meaning.