Two wikipedia articles/entries about topics that I know something about

The Raft of the Medusa is a work by the French painter Theodore Gericault and I know this painting very well. In my opinion from Wikipedia you can get a very good description of the work, but it depends on what are you interest in. If you are looking for a general idea of the Raft of the Medusa I think that Wikipedia description is correct and full, but if you are interest in art it’s not so high specific. First of all, as Wikipedia says, The Raft of the Medusa is a political statement, but in the Wikipedia articles historical circumstances are not clear. The scandal arouse in France because the incompetent captain of the Franch frigate Medusa left 139 people from the lower class on a raft and they remain there for 13 days; Just 13 person survived. Moreover in the articles from Wikipedia an accurate description of the elements of the work is not available. Wiki does not state that in the painting there is a “movement” from the left side to the right side. On the left side of the raft there are the men who lost hope. There is an old man painted in neoclassical style that keep on the rasp the body of a young boy dead. This boy is still wearing his socks and this is a sign of realism; On the right side there are the man that still have an hope and their nude body are realistic too, in fact they look like a tribute to Michelangelo. What’ s more the painting shows a pyramidal pattern made by the mast and by the two ropes and the structure of the composition is very similar to “Liberty Leading the people” (Eugene Delacroix).

Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, in English “The path to the Nest of spiders”, is the wonderful first novel of the Italian 20th century writer Italo Calvino. The English article from Wikipedia about this book is really poor. The article summarize the plot in a so simple way that it’ s impossible to understand why this book is a masterpiece of literature. I suggest that an article about this book should start with an explanation on the characters. For example Pin is a kid how lives with her sister, a prostitute, during the second world wars. Pin love spend his time with adult persons but, when he steal a nazi gun and join partisans, he realize that life is based just on sex and violence, even among partisan that are heroes. It’ s important to underline that this book deal with the Italian Resistance against Fascism not in a rhetorical way ( it’s not an apologia of resistance), but from the point of view of a child. In the novel you can find a mix of fable an reality. Moreover in the Wikipedia article there is no reference to the importance of the nature in the book, that is a feature of Calvino’s style. In the end it’s so important in describing a Calvino’s novel to say something about his incredible vocabulary and style: the dialogues are in an popular and sometimes robe language but he describes meticulously the characters soul.