Constantinos Parthenis

(Greek, 1878-1967)

Angel /Discipline diameter 125 cm.

Footnotes

The artwork bears the artist's son signature on the reverse and the date 26/7 on the stretcher.

Provenance
N. Parthenis collection, Athens.
Private collection, Athens.

Literature
A. Kotidis, On Parthenis, University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1984, p. 36 (mentioned).
E. Matthiopoulos, Greece's Participation in the Venice Biennale, 1943-1940, doctoral dissertation, University of Crete, Rethymno 1996, vol. 3, pp. 748-749 (mentioned).
E. Mathiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis, K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, no. 282, p. 427 (catalogued), p. 342 (illustrated).

In 1939, the Minister-Governor of Athens Kostas Kotzias and Mayor Ambrosios Plytas, wishing to complete the City Hall's decoration program, decided to commission the great Parthenis to decorate the spacious southwest room on the first floor. The painter negotiated and agreed to be paid 800,000 drachmas—a huge amount for the time. Following a vote by the city council, the contract was signed on April 18, 1940, providing a period of twenty months for the delivery of twelve independent canvases. While Parthenis kept his end of the agreement, the Municipality of Athens, due to the outbreak of the Greek-Italian war and the German occupation that followed, was unable to honour the contract. After the war, in the early 1950s, the Municipality of Athens, under Mayor Kostas Kotzias, showed a renewed interest in acquiring the canvases at the cost agreed before the war. However, especially after the dramatic devaluation of the drachma on April 9, 1953, the agreed upon amount had lost almost all of its real value. Parthenis saw the proposed deal as a mockery of his work and turned it down without hesitation. As a result, the works remained in his workshop and out of public view until the artist's passing in 1967. ¹

Translated into evocative symbols, these highly idealised and allegorical works are absorbed in a world purified of any kind of brutality, a world that soars loftily in the heights of ideals, while their sensitive lines, translucent colours and abstractive formal vocabulary endow them with a highly poetic and spiritual content. Through a sophisticated formulation of style, which fully utilised the entire Greek aesthetic tradition while reading elegantly like a piece of undiscovered mythology, Parthenis managed to create a work of visual poetry, a world as much Greek as universal.

Gorgeously rendered in a tondo² format, the allegory of Discipline³ is personified by an angel with large, outstretched wings who safeguards a Doric column, using both hands in the typical posture of a medieval Templar knight holding his sword. The figure's robust composure and solemn frontality, which stem directly from Byzantine icon painting, invest the composition with a monumental quality and highlight its role as a dedicated guardian of an age-old cultural heritage that spans the centuries.

This is a mesmerizing work of linear elegance, evocative palette and rhythmic pattern designed with a great deal of freedom and alluding to spiritual values and timeless visions. Fine, segmented lines, which echo the simplicity of ancient Greek vase painting, dematerialised curvilinear shapes, sombre colours, bold use of large areas of raw canvas and abstractive stylisation create a world of pure forms, conveying an uplifting feel and a conviction that art can elevate human consciousness to a higher sphere.

Drawing from the poetic and inspiring atmosphere of the symbolist era, angels represent a recurrent theme in Parthenis's work throughout his career. Interestingly, when the artist produced works intended for worship, the angel wings are given a small, conventional shape. However, in his paintings not intended for worship, such as his famous Annunciation (auctioned by Bonhams, Greek Sale, November 21, 2018) they are stylised in a wonderful Art Deco fashion.

¹ See E. Mathiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis [in Greek], K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, pp. 91, 97-98; A. Kotidis, On Parthenis [in Greek], University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1984, pp. 21-22; A. Kotidis, "The Dialectic of Power in the Case of Costis Parthenis" [in Greek] in Constantinos Parthenis (1878-1967), exhibition catalogue, Vafopouleio Cultural Centre, Thessaloniki 1984, p. 43; A. Kotidis, "The Influence of Hellenic Art in the Work of C. Parthenis", L'Art Contemporain et le Monde Grec, Actes du XVIIIe Congres de l'Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art (AICA), Athens 1984, p. 151.
² Tondos are circular paintings and designs that became fashionable in Italy in the mid-15th century, although earlier examples are known.
³ A charcoal drawing in the collection of the National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens (no. 6622).