Italian 'hell' paintings scare Chinese visitors away   

湖北美院展出“但丁地狱”油画 被指“重口”(图)

昨日，一场名为《神曲·但丁的地狱》的展览在湖北省美术院美术馆开幕，意大利女画家罗伯塔·可妮用20多张写实油画诠释她心中的“神曲地狱”。画中地狱景象充满血迹伤痕，不少观众表示太过“重口味”，看得不舒服。[查看全文]

(ECNS) -- An Italian painter's modern take on Dante's "Divine Comedy" has scared away many visitors at an exhibition in central China's Hubei province, according to the Wuhan-based Changjiang Daily.

More than 20 realistic renditions of Dante's "hell" were exhibited at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts on Sunday.

Filled with blood, despair and tortured naked bodies, the paintings are too much for some visitors, including an old couple who hurried out after glancing at them, the newspaper said.

Xia, a female visitor, said: "It is not easy to appreciate the pictures."

The creator of the paintings, also a female, said Italians have long been accustomed to such paintings. As for the "uncomfortable feelings" stirred in Wuhan, she says "it's a good thing, because art should touch people's hearts and cause them to think."