Ulysses
2000, bronze 180cm

Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin), the most famous hero of Homer’s classical Antiquity, is still a symbol, even today, of a man with a thirst for knowledge who never gives in to the unknown. He is the son of Laertes and Anticlea, brought up by the wise centaur Chiron. He became King of Ithaca and married the ever loyal Penelope. He was distinguished by his great shrewdness and courage, his adventurous nature, his diplomacy and talent as a mediator but above all for his longing to understand vice and human virtue. Agamemnon persuaded him to participate in the Trojan War, during which he was singled out for his bravery and in particular for his astuteness. The deception of the wooden horse was his idea. After the city was destroyed, it took Odysseus, now hated by Neptune, more than ten years of relentless wandering about the Mediterranean to return home. The return to his homeland, narrated in the Odyssey which contains some of the most adventurous tales of Antiquity, was to become the model for storytelling until Joyce’s Ulysses.

What Anna Chromy has sculpted for us here clearly responds to our post-modern angst. Here is Ulysses with the beautiful, young, rounded body of a dancer. How many times has he already been shipwrecked? And yet he will not give in to his hostile destiny. He is struggling against the wind and the violence of the sea is sweeping him off his feet. He almost looks as though he is flying. He is clinging onto the ship’s helm but really he wants to be in control of it. He is leaning on the moving bar with his left foot as his only support. Even in the midst of a storm he manages to looks graceful. A rough bandage is wrapped around his head. He is concentrating hard and wondering what destiny has in store for him. He is trying to find some fixed points of reference to replace the ones that he has lost but it is now up to his inner being to help find his bearings again. From Anna Chromy’s visionary sensitivity a new, modern-day, version of the Odyssey has been created. She looks into the unknown within herself and finds new beauty.