Spyros Papaloukas(Greek, 1892-1957)Vue de Karyes, Mont Athos
€18,000 - €25,000
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Find your local specialistSpyros Papaloukas (Greek, 1892-1957)
signé en grec (en bas à droite)
huile sur carton
47 x 41.5cm (18 1/2 x 16 5/16in).
Peint en 1923.
signed in Greek (lower right)
oil on card
Footnotes
Provenance
Estate of the artist.
Private collection, Athens.
Littérature
Spyros Papaloukas, Sojourn in Mount Athos, Agra editions, Mount Athos 2003, no. 17, p. 85 (illustrated).
"Up there, in Mt. Athos, I clearly saw that art in all its great manifestations through the ages has always been about form and colour."
Spyros Papaloukas1
Papaloukas's exquisite output during his one-year sojourn in Mt. Athos (1923-1924), which established him as a leading exponent of plein-air painting, is a key chapter in the development of early 20th century Greek art, providing daring answers to some of the period's foremost issues concerning cultural identity.2
Here, he treated his subject by fusing the rich Byzantine tradition with the doctrines of modern art. As if he were making a Byzantine mosaic, he emphasized the flatness of the surface and endeavoured to liberate colour from its obligation to describe reality, a perception which was also of pivotal importance to the art of the Nabis, Cezanne and the early 20th c. cubist experiments. Moreover, as the schematic undulations of the landscape ascend, the horizontal tilts into the vertical, echoing the Byzantine backgrounds that tend to unfold upwards instead of receding in depth.
Bathed in diffused light and dominated by soft tonalities without intense gradations, the monastic compounds almost lose their structural integrity. Dematerialized, they no longer represent a specific place but seem to reflect the infinite from whence ideal forms originate. As noted by the late Director of the Athens National Gallery M. Lambraki-Plaka, Papaloukas's expertly trained eye reveals the 'eternal becoming' of the world.3
1 As quoted by S. Doukas, Zygos magazine no. 31, May-June 1958, p. 8.
2. See A. Kouria, "Spyros Papaloukas's Athos" in Spyros Papaloukas, Sojourn in Mount Athos [in Greek], Agra editions - Mount Athos 2003, p. 22.
3 See M. Lambraki-Plaka, "Papaloukas' Painting" in Spyros Papaloukas, Painting 1892-1957 [in Greek], Athens 1995, pp. 33-48.