Carlo Mattioli’s Estate in Versilia offers almost nothing to the eye: a golden expanse of field beneath a dark horizon of trees. Its simplicity is austere, even severe. There are no figures, no narrative, no movement—only light and shadow stretched across the canvas. And yet, the longer I gaze upon it, the more it becomes not a landscape but a threshold. This is not merely Tuscany. It is eternity. It is Elysium.
The Greeks imagined Elysium as a place beyond the shadows of Hades, reserved not for all but for the axioi—the worthy. Hesiod spoke of it as a land of ease, “where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up breezes of the West Wind” (Works and Days, 170–173). Homer assigned it to Menelaus, kin of Zeus, and later poets peopled it with Achilles, Orpheus, and other heroes. Elysium was not a realm of divine reward so much as a continuation of life at its best, stripped of suffering.
To be admitted required aretē. Usually translated as “virtue” or “excellence,” aretē is better understood as the fullest realization of one’s nature. Achilles embodied martial courage; Odysseus, cunning and endurance; Penelope, fidelity and patience; Orpheus, the transformative power of art; Socrates, the devotion to truth even unto death. The diversity of figures shows that worth was not defined by one mold but by integrity to one’s calling. Aretē was not perfection, but striving.
As a student of classical literature and religion, I find myself measuring this against other traditions that echo the same concern. The Sermon on the Mount pronounces blessed not the powerful but “the meek…the merciful…the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:5–9). The Noble Eightfold Path insists on right action, right speech, and right livelihood as conditions for liberation. Socrates, in Plato’s Apology, declared, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Each tradition differs in language, but all converge on the same demand: that a life be lived with care, with truth, with courage.
Mattioli’s field sharpens that demand. Its emptiness strips away every distraction, leaving only the question of worth. To imagine myself in that ochre expanse is to ask: have I cultivated the courage of Achilles, the endurance of Odysseus, the patience of Penelope, the compassion of Christ, the mindfulness of the Buddha, the honesty of Socrates? Or have I settled for something easier—something loud, shallow, fleeting?
Here psychology becomes indispensable. Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death, argued that human beings are haunted by mortality and that much of our striving—our projects, politics, even our illusions—is an attempt to achieve symbolic immortality. “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else,” Becker wrote. “It is a mainspring of human activity—designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.” The Greeks named Elysium as one such denial: a vision of continuity beyond the grave. Our modern cult of fame or ideology may be another.
But what Becker critiques, Viktor Frankl reframes. Surviving the camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’” For Frankl, meaning was not found in escape from death but in living purposefully despite it. Worthiness, in this sense, was not about denial but about the integrity with which one endured suffering and responded to the demands of life. Frankl’s insistence resonates with aretē: to live worthily is not to be free of pain, but to transform it into purpose.
Philosophy pushes still deeper. Martin Heidegger, in Being and Time, insisted that human beings are defined by their relationship to death: “As soon as man comes to life, he is at once old enough to die.” For Heidegger, to live authentically meant to face one’s “being-toward-death,” to allow the reality of finitude to sharpen the way one exists in the present. Mattioli’s dark horizon embodies this reality. The golden field may be Elysium, but the heavy line above reminds us of mortality pressing close. The painting becomes a visual metaphor for Heidegger’s claim: death is not an event at the end of life, but a presence structuring every moment of it.
And yet, unlike Becker’s terror, Frankl’s resilience, or Heidegger’s ontology, Mattioli’s painting offers no analysis. It offers only silence. The estate glows, empty and eternal, refusing to answer the question of who may enter. It does not admit posturing. It does not open for those who confuse noise with virtue, ideology with excellence, fame with integrity. In its emptiness, it demands something harder: that each life be examined, each calling pursued, each action aligned with truth.
That is what unsettles me most. For all the ways societies raise up heroes or martyrs, the ochre field strips away illusion. The applause of crowds, the fervor of followers, the mythologies of nation or creed—all fall silent here. What remains is whether one’s life, however flawed, bent toward aretē.
In this way, Mattioli’s Estate in Versilia is not a promise but a question. As I stand before it, I hear the echoes of traditions that have shaped me: the Greeks insisting on excellence, the Sermon on the Mount blessing the merciful, the Buddha urging right action, Socrates demanding examination, Frankl pointing to meaning, Heidegger reminding me of finitude. Each converges here, in a golden silence that asks: am I living in such a way that when the horizon rises, the estate will open?
I do not know the answer. What I know is the urgency of the question.