The Humument piece called Empyrean, created by Moeen Razak is based on Dante Alighieri’s novel Inferno. A Humument is a piece of work inspired by Tom Phillips who created the very first one based on W. H. Mallock’s novel A Human Document. In the Humument presented before you, the artist tries to bring out a different interpretation of the original text. The artist uses a staircase style to help guide the reader from top to bottom. The artist uses analogous colors to help portray his meaning of the piece. From where it says” departing from the war errs O memory thy guidest thou father to the adversary who unfitting the empyreal heaven. After reading this piece the artist wants readers to feel enlightened by it. It should give its readers a spiritual effect.
By using an analogous palette for the color choices, the artist helps contrast heaven and hell. The colors used range from red to orange. It uses their chromatic gray hue along with their prismatic hue. Their are some colors that use a muted tone to express a duller hue. The colors, such as red and red orange are more hot and vibrant, so it helped fit with the hellish theme. Colors like yellow and yellow orange are a little cooler and aren’t as vibrant. The artist used these to represent heaven. When these colors are desaturated enough they can start to look cooler and have a darker value. With these colors the artist uses them for shading and produce a darker effect.
The artist uses red as his dominant color. Red has a negative feeling, like war or death. Also anything mixed with red, gives off a more vibrant hue, for example red orange. The sub dominant color would be yellow. You may ask why the artist has done this? The artist wanted to keep some of the original meaning of the text, so he used more red then yellow. The red shows more hell then heaven because the book is mainly about hell. The spaces that are left uncolored are there to help guide the reader along the piece. The artist makes it very obvious which side is hell and which side is heaven. He draws flames in red orange to show the hotness of hell. He uses the lighter colors like yellow, along with a picture of two angels to help distinguish heaven.
The title the artist chooses for this piece is Empyrean. It is a word that comes from the original text, but in a different form. It is stated in the original text as empyreal. The words basically have the same meaning (highest of heaven). The artist uses that word as his inspiration for the meaning of this piece of art. That word itself surrounded by a majority of word that have a negative meaning really catches the eye. When the piece is read there is a message of how hard it seems to get to heaven. It makes you think as if you were on a journey and their are many forks in the road. You have to choose a way to go. That choice is what puts you closer to heaven or hell. The next few lines talk about ”all evil”. It shows how all evil is not welcomes in heaven. The precise word used is that they are unfit to be in the empyreal heaven. After reading the piece and the message the reader should feel enlightened. The message is different than what is printed on the original page of the book.
Many readers may have their own interpretations of this humument. Moeen Razak’s interpretation is just one of the many opinions out there. The main purpose the artist tried to portray is enlightenment with spirituality. Having people see the differences of heaven and hell, would get them to choose. They would start to think where they would want to end up. They would think a little more before they make a decision. Using bright warm colors to portray heaven and hell helped support the artist’s view of the piece.
