55. CONSTANTINOS MALEAS (1879-1928) Art & décoration

Description

55. CONSTANTINOS MALEAS (1879-1928) Monemvasia Signé en grec (en bas à droite) huile sur toile contrecollé sur panneau dur 32,5 x 40,5 cm. Peint c. 1924-1928 Provenance Kourd collection, Athens. Private collection, Athens. Exhibitions Athens, Zappeion Hall, C. Maleas, December 1924 (possibly). Literature A. Kotidis, The Painter C. Maleas (1879-1928), doctoral dissertation, Thessaloniki 1982, p. 154 (mentioned), p. 283, no. 212 (catalogued), fig. 6.62 (illustrated). In the 1920s, Maleas travelled extensively in mainland and insular Greece venturing to penetrate into the inner world of this age-old land, become part of its reality and then recompose it with creative freedom. Monemvasia belongs to this most mature period (1918-1928) of his art, during which all his defining stylistic features were fully developed. As noted by A. Kotidis who wrote the artist's monograph, "with these works, Maleas carved his niche in history as one of the fathers of 20th-century Greek art."1 Although the Greek landscape fascinated Maleas, his Monemvasia is not drawn to the picturesque. There are no evocative details or narrative elements, no dramatic, romanticised views of the landscape threatened by dark and stormy skies. It is the everlasting structure and powerful force of the sparse and barren land rather than its topographical appeal that intrigued the artist. His architectural studies helped him better understand the teachings of Cezanne who had exhorted painters to treat their subjects in terms of primary geometric shapes and volumes. Here, the historic rock of Monemvasia is entrusted not only to the truth of the painter's vision but also to the inner truth of the landscape's lasting structure that no reference to ephemeral human presence or nature's changing phenomena is allowed to disturb. The artist strives to capture the genuine elements, the actual essence of the natural landscape, eliminating the sense of depth and rendering the far-off volumes as pronounced as the nearer ones. To produce a powerful image and engage the viewer, he relies solely on formal and pictorial means. Demonstrating bold handling of line, colour and volumetric form within a luminous and vibrant atmosphere, the artist transforms the stimuli of the visible world into an abstract language of signs articulated around a solid pictorial structure. The one element that defines Maleas' mature work above anything else is his ability to organise his picture as a system of forms, where nothing is random and everything follows a rigorous compositional plan that constitutes a new reality. 1 : A.K. (A. Kotidis) in Dictionary of Greek Artists [in Greek], vol. 3, Melissa publ., Athens 1999, pp. 31-32.