From Prometheus to Antigone - the dream of a poet-photographer
When Mussorgsky wrote the music for his Pictures for an Exhibition, inspired by the drawings of his friend, the architect and artist Hartmann, who had just died, it was still during the Tsarist era and The Great Gate of Kiev perhaps offered him the opportunity to exalt in triumphant tones the ancient glory of Great Russia, of which Kiev, today the tragic heart of Ukraine, was then a part. Now Russian history seems to violently want to retrace its imperial steps, but this is certainly not the sense in which Roberto Mosi - a poet and photographer of the soul as well - recently wanted to reread that image. He certainly re-proposes it to us in a metaphorical key, as he makes us listen again to Ravel's magical version of 1929, which was followed by Kandinsky's delightful "figurines" aimed at representing the synaesthetic conception of the arts. The theme is in fact also dear to our poet, who has nevertheless chosen a courageous path: tracing the movements of the work, he wants to accompany us, with sweet obstinacy, towards the door of hope and trust in human creativity and in the cognitive progress that science definitely brings. In this way we pass through the most unusual images and subliminal messages of a city where, even in the midst of a pandemic crisis and behind masks, art is still alive (starting with the poor and contemporary art of the "murales", counterpointed by the archaeological discovery of the primitive art of graffiti), Roberto-Prometeo thus arrives at the "dream of the great Gateway to the River/Open to the Myth of Science, in a route - imaginatively painted with the colours and music of the street artists - that looks towards the hills of Arcetri to prepare an ideal dialogue with Galileo "on the destiny of the planets and the stars"... Or rather, on the destiny of humanity itself.
Aeschylus' myth tells of a Prometheus who sacrificed himself to give fire to men, stealing it from the gods, who punished him by chaining him. One wonders why: were the gods jealous because they feared that mankind would become too powerful with science and technological progress? Or did they fear the perverse use of that knowledge and the tendency towards self-destruction produced by weapons and more? A sort of prophecy of human history up to our worrying days of environmental and war disasters?
Plato thought about it and proposed a new version of the myth in the Protagoras. Here, Zeus decides to intervene to 'correct' Prometheus' gift so as to prevent men from making bad use of technology by turning to violence and risking extinction. For this reason, he gives them the gift of Politics, that is, the ability to dialogue and establish harmonious social relations, according to measure and justice. Mosi does not speak explicitly about this gift, but somehow suggests it to us throughout his work. In the meantime, he focuses on the polis, which is made up of people and interactions, of sharing beauty and mutual respect in civil life, an unspoken that is said, recalling Dante's combination of "virtute e conoscenza". And in the end, Antigone appears before Prometheus. It is precisely in this encounter that the gift of Politics can fully realise its task of civilisation or, to put it better, with an apparent paradox, of humanisation of the human. To this end, politics can only meet with the ethics of which Antigone is the bearer, opposing the cold laws of Creon, in the name of a science (Prometheus) at the service of the dignity of the person and beyond the risks of an exasperated mechanicism. If Leopardi in "La Ginestra" had sung the praises of the "magnificent progressive fortunes" but had immediately afterwards hoped for the importance of the "social chain", that is to say of human solidarity, Roberto Mosi with Antigone, reminds his Prometheus to save science by covering it with values and putting in the foreground the very salvation of humanity and of the nature it serves. An ending that encourages, giving strength to both reason and heart, because the myth is the child of both.
Giusy Frisina
* * *
Tempo IV
(Promethéus. Il dono del fuoco, p.55)
Antigone
----------- = salvezza dalla scienza
Prometeo
Incontro Prometeo
e il tempo del Covid
in ogni angolo del mondo
Sfoglio i quadri della pandemia
angoscia negli occhi incassati
nei volti, sopra le maschere
paura dell'altro, amico nemico
nostalgia di teneri amori
Musica, John Cage, Music of Change
Poesia, Irene Vella, Era l'11 marzo
Il dio, ladro del fuoco, porge
ad Antigone la fiamma della scienza
Antigone sfida le leggi di Creonte
la sorella Ismene, le amiche vicine
Luci sempre accese nei laboratori
si alza pietra per pietra la diga
dell'immunità contro il contagio
Prometeo e Antigone illuminano
la via all'uomo per riprendere
a vivere, per riconquistare l'amore