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Somewhat Medley (Adventure Tales as Constellations, or James Oliver Curwood and Hugo Pratt as producers of «objet imaginaires»Third Clipping)
The way in which Hugo Pratt did cluster together images and words to shape objet imaginaires as unfathomable as divinatory signs, is best shown, perhaps, by his skillfull watercolors, such as Senecas Indians (1977), or Sir Brandel re dei corvi d’Irlanda and Sligo (1979), or Aden di Obock and Zona del lago Abbè and Tipi di donne Afar (1982).
In Sligo is pictured Bellacorick Bridge, an ancient Irish unfinished stone bridge, which, according to Brian Rua’s prophecy, will never be finished—«un ponte magico che porta in un mondo magico e bellissimo», as remarks an handwritten note by the author, suggesting, perhaps, that walking over the bridge one might pass through to Otherwhere.
Though James Oliver Curwood was not an illustrator, his novels, like Pratt’s comics and watercolors, and like many adventure tales, are enchanting and, in their own way, shorelessly meaningful, not because of the narrative form, nor owing to plot and characters, but by the clusters of multifarious elements that they offer to the reader’s imagination—quickening constellations that remain engraved in the theater of memory, living in the Netherworld.
The above mentioned watercolors may be admired in a wonderful work: Hugo Pratt, Periplo immaginario: Acquarelli, 1965-1995, a cura di Thierry Thomas e Patrizia Zanotti, Roma, Lizard Edizioni, 2005, pp. 118, 140, 141, 171.