Ulisse by giulband

Bryce • Surrealism • posted on Mar 30, 2020

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Description

It is noon on Saturday 9 April Dante and Virgilio are in the group of fraudulent advisors where Diomedes and Ulysses appear from a flame with two points, punished here for the deception of the Trojan horse. Ulysses tells Dante and Virgil about the circumstances of his death. "O frati", dissi "che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l’occidente, a questa tanto picciola vigilia d’i nostri sensi ch’è del rimanente, non vogliate negar l’esperienza, di retro al sol, del mondo sanza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza". "O brethren," I said "that's one hundred milia why did you come to the West, to this much small eve of our senses which is of the rest, don't want to deny the experience, back to the sun, the world without people. Consider your seed: you were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge ". Ulysses should not be in hell but in limbo because he was born before Christ. Perhaps Dante puts it here to underline with admiration the desire for knowledge of man also seen as sin (consider the times in which Dante lived).

Comments (77)

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Richardphotos

6:51AM | Sat, 04 April 2020

I vaguely recall Dante, but have heard the name every since. superb layering and subject

I was ready to comment last evening, but I had to restart my computer after uninstalling a printer driver.

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aksirp

7:56AM | Sat, 04 April 2020

I like very much how you turn the story in our times, superb choose of colors and I like the big and bold letters!

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anahata.c

12:14PM | Sat, 04 April 2020

(Allor mi dolsi, e ora mi ridoglio / quando drizzo la mente a ciò ch’io vidi, / e più lo ’ngegno affreno ch’i’ non soglio, perché non corra che virtù nol guidi...) I remember the warning from years ago: "Do not abuse your talent, your abilities..." Your image is amazing: I can't find the proper words for it...You have rays of light in the upper half...light-purple rays, like rays from huge spotlights. This almost has a "Hollywood Epi"c feeling, as if Ulysses were surrounded by "glitz and glitter"...Ulysses had a large ego, and sought conquest and fame...maybe those rays are Ulysses' dream of fame and media celebration...

But you have flames, and that amazing armor---you've imprinted the armor with a stream of etched 'data'---as if it carried data and news from Ulysses' time, but also from Dante's time, and from our own time. You're so creative. And the last lines, "per seguir virtute e canoscenza" are set into your scene like a huge marble sculpture. You have beautiful shallow water---again that symbol of renewal and cleansing---and rainbow hues. And big blocks of ice and stone in the bottom of your image...a barrier, maybe? A wall? The wall of Troy? (You have the Trojan horse, looming over your image, in dark grays and skeletal lines.) Or maybe those stones contain wisdom, for Dante and for us. And you have textures in the whole upper half, which look like a combination of marble and slate. I've seen those textures in other works of yours...primal stone, cut and assembled (in this image), waiting for Ulysses (and for all hubris-driven souls) to cut them down, and hew them. The image feels like a crumbling grand tower. And Ulysses is engulfed in flame. A very powerful image, Giuliano. I love how you've visualized Dante.

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