Odysseus, at the Doors of Hades, Meets the Shades of Tiresias and Anticlea

Art Historical Context

In the Odyssey, Odysseus travels to the western edge of the world and digs a trench to fill with blood. The spirits of the dead gather to drink and speak, among them the prophet Tiresias, whose counsel will guide the hero’s return, and the shade of his own mother, Anticlea, who had died from longing during his absence. Lips sets the living warrior apart by rendering his body with firm contours and heavy modeling while the surrounding figures dissolve into pale, overlapping washes that suggest insubstantial forms drifting from the cavern mouth. The placement of a small altar and ritual vessels between the groups quietly marks the boundary Odysseus has crossed to reach them. Drawn in pen and brown ink with black and brown washes on blued-white laid paper in 1785, the sheet is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Look at the prophet’s extended hand near the ground; the line breaks and thins there, leaving the fingers barely attached to the arm and underscoring the moment of contact between worlds.