FOTIS KONTOGLOU

(1895-1965)

Guerriers des montagnes pendant la révolution Grecque de 1821, chahutés par la muse populaire

Footnotes

Provenance
Mrs Papadeli collection (relative of Kondoglou).
St. Kirloglou collection, Athens.
Private collection, Athens.

Exhibitions
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Exhibition of Greek Art: 3000 B.C. - A.D. 1945, February 15 - March 17, 1946.
London, Greek House, British Council, Six Contemporary Greek Painters, Diamantopoulos, Ghika, Kontoglou, Papaloukas, Semertzidis, Vakalo, March 21-31, 1946.

Literature
J. Chittenden, C. Seltman, Greek Art, a Commemorative Catalogue of an Exhibition Ηeld in 1946 at the Royal Academy Burlington House London, Faber and Faber editions, London 1947, p. 64, no. 516 (listed under the title Mountaineers in Hiding), plate 123, no. 516 (illustrated).
Angloelliniki Epitheorisi magazine, no. 3, May 1946, p. 92 (mentioned).
N. Zias, Photis Kontoglou, Painter, Commercial Bank of Greece edition, Athens 1993, p. 106, fn. 5 (mentioned).


I want to be an armatolos, an armatolos and klepht
to have as relatives the trees, and my brothers the rocks
to have the partridges send me to sleep
the nightingales to wake me
and on the summit of Liakoura, to make my cross.
Demotic song

On a rugged mountain landscape with wind-swept trees and precipitous rocky outcrops through which one can take a glimpse of a clear sky and rippled sea, two men in traditional fustanella highland kilts rest pensively, daydreaming about the day that Greece will restore its former glory and regain its freedom after four centuries of Ottoman occupation. Among them lie scattered ancient ruins, architectural fragments, pieces of classical sculpture, and broken marble slabs, one of which being inscribed "Glory of the Greeks." These remnants of antiquity, which seem so much a part of their everyday reality, underline the continuity of Hellenism through the ages,1 recalling the famous verse by Nobel laureate G. Seferis: "I awoke with a marble head in my hands, which made my elbows weary."

The Klephts, those "lion-bodied men with ancient blood running through their veins and souls full of hidden riches,"2 as Kontoglou himself described them, were anti-Ottoman insurgents and warlike brigands who hid in inaccessible mountain ranges and remote hideouts known as limeria, interrupting communications and making Turkish control in Greece particularly difficult. To counter their activity, successive Ottoman governments recruited local militia men mainly of Greek origin, known as armatoloi, who were generally sympathetic to those they were supposed to repress. The local orthodox communities regarded the klephts and the armatoloi with great respect and their deeds and way of life have been idealised over the centuries. Despite their reputation for violence, most Greeks saw them as living symbols of resistance to Ottoman occupation and of their dream of liberty. In the early years of the Greek Revolution, it was such men—among them Theodoros Kolokotronis, Athanassios Diakos, and Odysseus Androutsos—who led the Greeks to the first victories that sustained the long struggle for independence.3

The composition is sober and the technique is close to that used in portable religious icons with their painstaking detail. Moreover, the flat rendering of space, absence of chiaroscuro, inner, otherworldly light, earthy colour and schematisation of form stem directly from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine pictorial tradition, while the disciplined design and delicate modelling, rendered through fluent brushstrokes, evoke a mood of austerity and contrition, lending the notorious brigands a dignified appearance.

The leading advocate for a secular adaptation of Byzantine art conventions and forms, Kontoglou sought to breathe new life to 20th century Greek art by re-baptizing it in the invigorating waters of tradition. His passionate campaign, combined with his view that the frugal expressive means of Byzantine icon painting are kindred in spirit to the abstractive conceptions of modern art, had a decisive influence on Greek artists and especially on the exponents of the legendary 1930s generation.

1. Compare Y. Tsarouchis, Soldier dancing zeibekiko, lot 69, and Theofilos Hadjimichail, Allegory: Wounded Greece rescued by A. Korais and R. Feraios, Bonhams, The Greek Sale, May 23, 2006, lot 107.
2. Kontoglou, Erga, I Ponemeni Romiosyni [in Greek], Astir, A. and E. Papadimitriou editions, Athens 1976, p. 282.
3. See P.H. Paroulakis, The Greek War of Independence, Hellenic International Press, Darwin, 2000, pp. 19-20.