Da Odisseo alle Nereidi. Riflessioni sull'iconografi etrusca del mare attraverso i secoli

From the last decades of the 8th up to the 1st century B.C. Etruscan art is permeated by pictures and allusions referring to the sea. However, the meaning of these representations evolves through the centuries. In the orientalising period, the sea symbolises the great challenge of man: the dangers hidden within its waves are part of the daily human experience, in navigation and commerce, and become symbols of death. Only Etruscan princes can overcome those risks. During the archaic period, the sea suggests a condition completely different from daily life, an "otherness" that, together with the banquet, still symbolises death. From the 5th century on and throughout all Hellenism, the image of the sea in Etruscan art gradually loses its deep, symbolic meaning and becomes a decorative motif, although it remains on funerary urns, sarcophagi and painted tombs.