Voyage to Kythira

A myth is enough to «mark» a place. When Hesiod wrote Theogony, he could not have imagined that the birth of Aphrodite in Kythira would, centuries later, inspire artists in France and Italy to attribute to a small island the significance of an ideal place, an earthly paradise. The travelers of the 17th and 18th centuries, charmed and influenced by the spirit of the Renaissance, which reconnected the West with classical antiquity, followed the roads of the East and the Aegean. Poets and painters then created works combining myth with the experiences of travelers.

Truly, how much power and imagination could Baudelaire, Watteau, and Botticelli have had to create such beautiful works for an island they had never even visited? Aphrodite, the symbol of love, with the epithets of Heavenly and Cytherian expressing the highest form of love, is the driving force behind the creation of allegorical images, dreamlike scenes with celebrations of love, optimism, and anticipation for a new world. In the human mind, Kythira becomes a burning desire. Some realize, when they arrive on the poor land of Kythira, that their dream is over and will remain forever utopian. Theodoros Angelopoulos, in his film «The Voyage to Kythira,» presents this feeling in such an inventive way when he connects the modern history of Greece and the outcome of political events with the idea of utopia.

Meet all those who dreamed of traveling to Kythira. Come aboard the ship. And as Baudelaire says, «...be constantly drunk with wine, poetry, and virtue, according to your preference.»