Rauschenberg's inventive contemporaneous interpretation of Dante's Inferno

Between 1958 and 1960, Robert Rauschenberg produced a series of 34 drawings, one for each Canto, or section, of Dante's poem The Inferno (1308-1321). Together they are a virtual encyclopedia of modern-day imagery, made by transferring photographic reproductions from magazines or newspapers onto the drawing surface. "I think a picture is more like the real world when it's made out of the real world," Rauschenberg said. With additional imagery in pencil, crayon, pastel and collage,...