NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS

(1907-1985)

Tragédie à Hérodion

Footnotes

Provenance
The artist's collection, Athens.
Private collection.

Exhibitions
Athens, Athens Technological Institute (ATI), February 6-18, 1963, no. 14.
Brussels, Palais de Beaux-Arts, Peinture Grecque Contemporaine, May 8 - June 5, 1964.
Athens, Vera Kouloura Mansion - Benaki Museum, Pictorial Space - Theatricality, Athens Cultural Capital of Europe, Autumn 1985, p. 16 (illustrated).

Literature
Eleftheria newspaper, February 17, 1963 (illustrated).
Vradyni newspaper, February 2, 1967 (illustrated).
The Greek Painters, vol. II, 20th Century, Melissa editions, Athens 1975, p. 262 (discussed), p. 280, fig. 28 (illustrated).
T. Spiteris, Three Centuries of Modern Greek Art 1660-1967, Athens 1979, vol. II, p. 170 (illustrated).
Ikon magazine, no. 7, Summer 1981 (illustrated).
An. Kafetsi, La Peinture Hellénique autour des Années Trente et la Problème de la "Grécité", doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris (Pantheon – Sorbonne), Paris 1985, pp. 20-50 (discussed), p. 645 (listed, fig.4).
Dromena magazine, no. 10-11, July-October 1985 (cover illustration).
Eleftheros Typos newspaper, November 4, 1985 (illustrated).
Nikos Engonopoulos, Epta Imeres – Kathimerini weekly magazine, June 30, 2002, p. 11 (mentioned).
E. Benisi, Nikos Engonopoulos and Cityscapes, doctoral dissertation, vol. 1, Athens 2006, (illustrated between pp. 227-228).
K. Perpinioti-Agazir, Nikos Engonopoulos, Son Univers Pictural, exhibition catalogue and catalogue raisonée, Benaki Museum, Athens 2007, no. 542, p. 293 (illustrated), p. 453 (catalogued and illustrated).
N. Chaini, The Painting of Nikos Engonopoulos, doctoral dissertation, National Technical University of Athens, Athens 2007, pp. 246-247 (discussed), p. 966, no. 74 (listed), p. 248, fig. 74 (illustrated).
E. Georgiadou-Kountoura, On Women, Gender Identity, and Defenseless Loves, Nefeli editions, Athens 2019, p. 75, fn. 50 (mentioned).




Flooded with light and colour and bathed in a translucent atmosphere of dazzling clarity and glow, this exquisite painting is one of the finest examples of the artist's mastery of colour. Enamel-like reds, bright greens, fluorescent oranges and sparkling lavenders, applied side by side on the canvas with minimal tonal gradations, sparkle like rubies and emeralds, making the entire pictorial surface shine like a stained-glass window in a Gothic cathedral. "A dedicated coloriste, Engonopoulos adhered to a long and rich tradition that goes way back to the Homeric epics, a world full of colours that are bound with natural elements, human acts and everyday objects."1

Despite its deep roots in the age-old Greek schema, the artist's dazzling colour palette created a stir at the time. However, as perceptively noted by legendary surrealist poet Nanos Valaoritis, Engonopoulos was ahead of his era, foreshadowing in a way the advent of pop art which boldly incorporated glossy imagery drawn from popular and mass culture, such as commercial advertising and comic strips. Today, says Valoritis, we can better understand that which seemed eccentric and grotesque back in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.2

Set against the schematised and unmistakably Engonopoulian formations of travelling clouds, the visual act takes place in the 2nd c. AD Odeum of Herodus Atticus in Athens, as indicated by the tall arched niches in the background. The shallow space of the stage set heightens the overall sense of theatricality. Engonopoulos, who never hesitated to explore the correlations between theatrical and pictorial space and introduce the theatrical into his painting,3 has once said that "under the stage lights, with the most harmonious moves, in a coordinated whole, amidst colours and music, every human dream comes alive, flooding the soul with guileless joy, far from the obligations and obstacles of grim reality."4

The five enigmatic figures on stage are seemingly the protagonists of an imaginary play, enacting a dramatic or epic event that echoes the didactic description of Byzantine icon painting and the high rhetoric of the artist's beloved teacher C. Parthenis. The figure on the extreme left may be identified as Hercules, as indicated by the wooden club he is holding, which is the hero's primary attribute, while the red figure in short chiton on the far right is unmistakably Hermes, judging from his characteristic petasos hat and kerykeion staff wound round with snakes. Second only to Orpheus and far ahead of any other mythological figure in terms of appearances in Engonopoulos's oeuvre, swift-footed Hermes was the trusted messenger and herald of the Olympian gods. Being the connecting link between heaven, the underworld, and life on earth, he was also the god of dreams, making him an ideal subject for de Chirico and Engonopoulos.

1. M. Gyparaki, Nikos Engonopoulos, Drawing or Colour [in Greek], Ikaros editions, 2007, p. 126.
2. See N. Valaoritis, "Mannerism without Maniera," Nea Synteleia magazine, no. 8-9-10, 2008, pp. 70-71.
3. P. Rigopoulou, "Nikos Engonopoulos" in D. Tsouchlou-A.Bacharian, Stage-Setting in Modern Greek Theatre [in Greek], Athens 1985, p. 141.
4. Written in 1961 and reprinted in N. Engonopoulos, Works in Prose [in Greek], Ypsilon editions, Athens 1987, p. 30.