Nikos Engonopoulos

(Greek, 1907-1985)

Irô et Leandros

Footnotes

Provenance
Gift of the artist in 1954 to Demetrios and Niki Andrikopoulos and hence by descent to the present owner.

Littérature
K. Perpinioti-Agazir, Nikos Engonopoulos, Son Univers Pictural, exhibition catalogue and catalogue raisonée, Benaki Museum, Athens 2007, no. 474, p. 156 (illustrated), p. 282 (illustrated), p. 444 (catalogued and illustrated).


A magician whose creative imagination followed the footsteps of gods and heroes, Engonopoulos couldn't but be fascinated by the love story of Iro and Leandros.

According to the Hellenistic myth, Iro, a beautiful young girl from Sestos dedicated by her parents to Aphrodite's service, lived in an isolated tower by the shores of the Hellespont. The maiden's beauty increased with the years and the fame of her loveliness passed over the straits and reached Abydos, hometown of the brave and handsome Leandros. Eventually the two youths met at a solemn festival in honour of the goddess, fell in love, and Leandros vowed to swim to Iro's sea-girt tower when the shades of night had fallen. To guide him safely across the straits she would light a lamp and hold it aloft. And so, the secret lovers maintained their passion through many summer nights. But when winter came and the sea grew stormy, they should have refrained from lighting the lamp. Yet, love and destiny compelled them, and the fatal night arrived. Leandros struggled with the waves but his strength failed him—and Iro's lamp was blown out by the wind. When the grey morning dawned over the tossing sea, Iro saw him lying dead at the foot of the tower. Devastated, she threw herself into the waves and perished by her lover's side.¹

The story of Iro and Leandros is found in folk tales and love lyrics across Europe and beyond. It is also depicted on Pompeiian frescoes, on a mosaic and a relief found in Tunisia, and on coins of Abydos and Sestos, the towns at the beginning and end of Leandros's legendary journey. Centuries later, in 1810, Lord Byron, inspired by the story, achieved the hero's feat of swimming across the Hellespont. Three years later, he wrote the following lines from his The Bride of Abydos:

"The winds are high on Helle's wave,
As on that night of stormy water
When Love, who sent, forgot to save
The young, the beautiful, the brave
The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter."²

Engonopoulos portrays the couple's encounter at Iro's stonewall tower by the sea.³ Leandros, waded knee deep into the wavy waters of Hellespont in a full body bathing suit, reaches towards his naked lover—in a manner highly reminiscent of Theofilos's representations of Erotocritos reaching the balcony of his beloved Aretousa—while the lamp,⁴ which is the confidant of their secret loving, presides over the scene.

Drawn from the treasury of Greek mythology, this artistic vision faithfully reflects Engonopoulos's attitude towards painting as an ideal vehicle to probe into the world of Greekness. As noted by theatre director and playwright Alexis Solomos, "Engonopoulos can merge symbols of different origin and character, yet what is more astonishing with him is the all-prevailing spirit of Greece in his work. Every point of the universe, every moment in history is detached, through a magic power, from its geographical or historical setting and made to contribute to the predominant idea of the artist's own land."⁵ As noted by the late Athens National Gallery Director M. Lambraki-Plaka, "Engonopoulos's figures may draw their origin from Giorgio de Chirico but they are unmistakably Greek, reminiscent of the Minoans immortalised on the Knossos frescoes and the early kouroi, while alluding to the tall and slender formula of the Byzantine saints also evident in El Greco's work."<sup>6

1</sup> See M. Grant, Myths of the Greeks and the Romans, Mentor editions, New York, 1962, pp. 373-378; H.A. Guerber, The Myths of Greece and Rome, London, 1921, pp. 89-94. See also K. Perpinioti-Agazir, Nikos Engonopoulos, Mythology, Ypsilon editions, Athens 2006, p. 98.
² Lord Byron, The Bride of Abydos, Canto the Second, I, 483-487.
³ Compare Iro and Leandros, 1980.
⁴ The lamp is a distinct and recurring theme in Engonopoulos's work with symbolic overtones (compare Hora ruit, 1939, Iro,1957, and Scholiasts of a future text, 1958 (sold by Bonhams, Greek Sale 24.11.21, lot 41).
⁵ J. Lehman ed., New Writing and Daylight, New Direction editions, England 1946, p. 126.
⁶ M. Lambraki-Plaka "The Timeless Pantheon of Nikos Engonopoulos" [in Greek], Filologiki quarterly, no. 101, October-November-December 2007, p. 9.