One of the most ambitious exhibitions ever devoted to Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, these two famous epics that are the foundation of all Western culture. It offers an unprecedented dive into the richness of the Homeric world, a universe as beautiful as mysterious.
After a prelude devoted to the gods of Olympus and the Muse invoked by Homer, the exhibition sets out to discover the «prince of poets», whose very existence is discussed. It also explores the phenomena of «homeromany», which have marked archaeological science and inspired works or behaviors, following a Homeric imitation of great fruitfulness, even in everyday life. The exhibition then brings back to life the main heroes and stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Archaeological objects and modern works evoke the way in which these epics were put in images, with a rare constancy but with variations according to the epochs, which are part of a history of taste.
The course also looks back at the most famous scenes of the Trojan War, belonging to other poems that have disappeared but were still read in antiquity. They reveal the profusion of ancient epic material and the miracle of the preservation of Homer’s works.
More info: https://www.louvrelens.fr/exhibition/homere/? tab=exhibition