Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Athens.

EXHIBITED:
London, Recent paintings by Ghika, 11 May - 2 June 1961, no 6.

LITERATURE:
Cleanthi-Christina Valkana, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Paintings, Benaki Museum, Athens 2011, no 284 (p. 293 illustrated).


One of the painter's signature subjects, namely the crooked stone walls that inform so much of the Greek landscape, features prominently across the picture plane of this wonderful canvas, emerging like ancient ruins from the luxuriant flora. Angular shapes, slanted lines and geometric planes imbued with the breath of the earth, seem to impose order on an elemental universe. Across twisted diagonals and tangled verticals fall the shapes of plants and trees: acanthuses, thistles, thorns and asphodels; and, above all, candelabra-like fig trees, which, sporadic and independent, seem to thrive on the rugged terrain.¹ As the schematic undulations of the landscape ascend in petrified waves, the pictorial space shrinks and the horizontal tilts into the vertical, echoing the Byzantine backgrounds that tend to unfold upwards instead of receding in depth. A circular motif in the upper left corner of the composition, reminiscent of an arched doorway or a domed chapel, provides a sense of peace, while in the entire upper part, the sombre colours open up to a soothing stretch of wonderful greens, blues and lilacs.

Starting off with a Cezannesque conception of the landscape's deeper geometrical structure, and after breaking it down to its component pieces in accordance with post-cubist doctrines, the painter set about recomposing it with verve and confidence of touch. According to the painter himself, the fragmentations and distortions of cubism allude to an enduring convention of Greek art: "The character of the Greek schema, whether in antiquity, the Byzantine era or folk art, is by and large geometric.² In the same vein, Professor P. Michelis holds that Ghika's cubism draws from indigenous and age-old, timeless sources.³ As noted by art critic S. Spender, "in the paintings of these zigzagging, straight and quadrilateral walls which play such a role in his work, Ghika used his kaleidoscopic cubist technique for imposing a very complex pattern on landscape and history."⁴

In 1955, Ghika embarked on a quest to capture the 'essential' in art. As explained by the painter himself, this quest had nothing to do with either realism or naturalism. It involved a nexus of forces, relationships and tensions that are inherent in nature and must be explored. In 1958, a year before he painted this exquisite piece, the artist visited the Far East and, inspired perhaps by Japanese calligraphy's flow of brush, his landscapes became denser, reflecting his perception of nature as an ever-growing organism invested with rituals and myths. "I tried to evoke the whispering of leaves, the buzz of insects, the movements of tree branches, the breathing of the juices, the swirling of petals. The artist discovers pulsating rhythms derived from his intimate relationship with nature. He discovers them in the leaves and insects, in the light and the shadows cast by wind-swayed trees, in the flight of birds and the nuances of colour."⁵

Here, both the natural and the manmade environment are in a state of perpetual becoming. Walls, rocks and plants seem constantly expanding and contacting, transformed from rigorously defined shapes to visual allusions, so that the whole composition is immersed in a perpetually changing and revived atmosphere.

1. See P. Leigh Fermor, The Background of Niko Ghika in Ghika, Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Boston Book and Art Shop, Boston 1965, pp. 25-44.
². N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, On Greek Art [in Greek], Neon Kratos journal, no. 5, January 1938. As argued by Professor P. Michelis Ghika's cubism draws from age-old indigenous sources. P. Michelis, N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika [in Greek], Zygos journal, no. 58, September 1960, p. 10.
³. P. Michelis, N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika [in Greek], Zygos magazine, no. 58, September 1960, p. 10.
⁴. S. Spender, Ghika in Ghika, Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Boston Book and Art Shop, Boston 1965, p. 22.
⁵. See N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, The Birth of New Art [in Greek], Astrolavos-Efthini editions, Athens 1987, pp. 232-234; N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, In Front of Others [in Greek], Athens 1990, p. 25. See also transcribed excerpts from the Monogramma television documentary, ERT-2, 1984 in Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika [in Greek], Tegopoulos editions, Athens, 2009, p. 150.