Theofilos Hadjimichael

(Greek, 1871-1934)

La bataille de Kalambaka

Footnotes

*Veuillez noter qu'en raison de la réglementation grecque, ce lot ne peut pas être exporté de Grèce et sera disponible pour consultation et inspection à Athènes sur rendez-vous ou lors de l'exposition à Athènes, du 8 au 11 novembre 2022. Cette œuvre restera à Athènes pendant la vente aux enchères.

*Please note that due to Greek regulation, this lot cannot be exported from Greece and will be available for viewing and inspection in Athens either by appointment or during the Athens Preview, 8-11 November 2022. This work will be located in Athens during the auction.

Provenance
T. Eleftheriadis collection, Petra, Mytilene, Greece.
Acquired from the above collection by the present owner.

Expositions
Mytilene, Tourist Pavilion, The Painter Theofilos on Mytilene, October 7-30, 1962, no. 17 (listed in the exhibition catalogue).
Athens, Athens Art Gallery, Theofilos, May 12-31, 1975, no. 2 (listed in the exhibition catalogue).

Littérature
T. Spiteris, "Works in the Collection of Takis Eleftheriadis - Petra, Mytilene", handwritten list, July 1955, no. 5 (listed).
Anti magazine, vol. 2, no. 20, May 31, 1975 (discussed, p. 48 and illustrated, p. 49).
Theofilos, Commercial Bank of Greece edition, Athens 1966, no. 298 (illustrated).
E. Papazachariou, The Other Theofilos, Kaktos editions, Athens 1997, pp. 126-127 (discussed).
Tony Spiteris Archive, Tellogleion Art Institute, Photographs of Works by Theofilos Hadjimichael, p. 7, no. GR TITSpit 101102_148.


"When I saw the Takis Eleftheriadis¹ collection of Theofilos paintings hanging in his ample home in Petra, Mytilene, I was left with the impression that every single one of them was first rate."²
- Odysseus Elytis

"Just look at these Meteora, painted on a sheet of zinc, with their warm pinks and light blues giving shape to the rocks, with the dark blues of the uniforms animating the Battle of Kalambaka—a highly sophisticated harmony in two colours with just a few touches of red at the tip of the rocks and the Turkish garb".³
- Alexandros Xydis

Crowned by the otherworldly rocky outcrops and majestic byzantine monasteries of Meteora, and captured in a style reminiscent of the representational conventions used by Dimitrios/Panayotis Zografos and General Ioannis Makriyannis, the painting displays a battle scene between a Greek military unit formation on the left, led by a moustached officer on horseback, and a batch of Turkish troops on the right.

Based on the artist's lengthy inscription that frames the composition, the picture shows the victorious Battle of Kalambaka in which the Greeks, led by chieftains Christodoulos Hadjipetros and Nikolaos Leotsakos, defeated a force of Turks and Arabs in 1854. The fact that the horse rider on the left, sporting a large moustache and raising his sword, may be identified with Colonel Constantinos Smolenskis, the legendary hero of the 1897 Greek-Turkish war, shows how Theofilos, with his instinctive knowledge and keen sense of historical past, could easily migrate from one era to another, capturing bygone glory and heroism as a form of eternity constantly reborn in the present. His subject is treated more as a backdrop, allowing him to express his fascination with the idea of gallantry and heroic achievement without having to succumb to historical accuracy.

History is filtered through the artist's rich imagination and transformed into the enthusiasm sparked in him by the wealth of costumes, shinning flintlock muskets, fiery red fezzes and dazzling white fustanella kilts, the same highland garb the painter himself wore when he left Smyrna for Athens to voluntarily enlist in the 1897 campaign and which eventually became his signature attribute. Possibly, the Greek pallikare at the centre of the composition⁴ is a self-portrait since he holds the flag with his left hand.⁵

Gallantry is indicated through the repetition of pictorial and iconographic conventions, an approach to painting rooted in Byzantine and folk tradition and reminiscent of the Karaghiozi shadow-puppets or descriptions found in demotic songs. The wealth of detail is a vehicle of initiation into the artist's vision; a means of rendering more tangible to the spectators' imagination the world of bravery and legend they are invited to contemplate.

Moreover, the linear arrangement, the symmetry and rhythm of the composition and the impression of an immutable reality, take us further back to Archaic Greek vase painting and the narrative arrangement of that precursor of folk poetry, the Homeric epics -where all parts are generally set side by side in a paratactical presentation. All phenomena are thrust forward to the narrative surface where they receive even illumination in a flat, continuous present.⁶ As noted by critic and writer Ronald Crichton, "Theofilos presents an unconscious synthesis of the Greek spirit—a lesson to historians who wilfully separate the various periods of Greek history."<sup>7

1</sup> "A citizen of Mytilene, Mr. Eleftheriadis, father of the Parisian art critic and publisher Teriade, took a liking for Theofilos's work and company and introduced him to his son and to a small circle of writers and art lovers in the town. Theofilos was encouraged to come to Eleftheriadis's house in the olive groves on the slopes above the town, to paint and to talk." R. Crichton, "Theofilos" Orpheus, vol. 2, London 1949, p. 156.
² O. Elytis, The Painter Theofilos [in Greek], Asterias editions, Athens 1973, p. 56.
^3.A. Xydis, "Fine Arts Chronicle", Anti magazine, vol. 2, no. 20, May 31, 1975, p. 48.
⁴ The scene's main protagonist is depicted at the centre of the composition, where the viewer's eye is usually drawn, as is the case with Byzantine painting, which lacking a vanishing point, allows the eye to freely wander and naturally focus on the middle of the painting. See P.A. Michelis, Aesthetic Approach to Byzantine Art [in Greek], Panayotis end Efi Michelis Foundation, Athens 1990, p. 203.
⁵ See E. Papazachariou, The Other Theofilos [in Greek], Athens 1997, p. 127.
⁶ See H. Kambouridis - G. Levounis, Modern Greek Art - The 20th Century, Athens 1999, p. 43.
⁷ Crichton, p. 151.