In this lithograph from the great Odyssey suite (1974), Chagall captures a moment of intimacy, almost secret, where Homer’s epic turns into tenderness. Euryclea, the faithful nurse, recognizes Ulysses while washing his feet — not in the brilliance of battle or the tumult of voyages, but in the silence of a daily gesture that becomes revelation. The soft green that envelops the scene erases the drama to leave space for an atmosphere of regained peace, as if Chagall wished to suspend the story in a moment of domestic grace. The supple, nervous black line binds the figures in a discreet dance, while color (the gold of the basin, the transparency of the foliage) opens an area of reconciliation between the wandering man and his home. Here, exile and return are condensed into a single scene, where the simplest humanity touches myth.
