When, during an internet search, I came across this small terracotta figure, my first thought went to Ulysses: perhaps because of the strength and magnetism that emanates a gaze that goes to infinity, audacity and tranquility of those who are strong within their limits.
The simplicity of this figure, the brutalism stile and beautiful in its indefinition, can be an example of how in male nudity, the legacy of the aesthetic canons of antiquity and their reinterpretation in neo-classical, contemporary and symbolist periods, period firm of the creativity of the whole West, it transmits the charm of the body when it reveals itself in all its truth, an expression of eroticism, of strength but also of solitude.
It is no coincidence that Ulysses is the name of the syndrome that affects many migrants when they reach our borders, experiencing even more dramatic situations than those described in the Odyssey. And when Polyphemus asks Ulysses what his name is, he replies “My name is Nobody”. Likewise, immigrants must be invisible to survive, without identity and social integration.
MY READINGS
Much has been written about the Homeric hero, however, the one most dear to me is the Ulysses of the trilogy “My name is Nobody” by Valerio Massimo Manfredi.
“Manfredi is so good and able to make me feel the scent of olive trees, the chirping of cicadas and the warmth of the Ithaca sun on my skin; but he also manages to convey the cold of the nights when Odysseus is alone, without his companions, on a journey without hope and which he cannot conclude”.
– Review from “ Il profumo dei libri ” –
