Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Athens.

Expositions
Athens, Zappeion Hall, Parthenis Exhibition, January-February 1920 (based on an exhibition photograph published in E. Matthiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis, K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, p. 65).



The music of colours, first introduced by Klimt,
was taken up only by Parthenis among Greek artists.
Pinakothiki journal, January 1904.¹

Parthenis was one of the first artists to infuse the forces of renewal in Modern Greek painting, distancing it from academic pictorial formulas and turning it towards liberal artistic movements and avant-garde trends. Reviewing the artist's legendary 1920 Parthenis retrospective at the Zappeion hall, Athens National Gallery Director Z. Papantoniou noted: "Parthenis masterfully applies the innovative technique of 'optical mixture' in which pigments instead of being mixed on the palette are directly applied on the canvas to be mixed by the spectator's eye at a certain distance from the picture."²

This pulsating pointillism is perfectly evident in Pine Tree, producing a shimmering effect and charging the picture with vibrant energy. Throughout, Parthenis used his distinctive parallel strokes and sharp vertical touches with great confidence and freedom to capture the power and variable pulse of the landscape. The viewer's eye follows the darting movements of his brush, as successive touches of colour are seized upon and added to the picture surface.

Moreover, the elegant shapes, sinuous lines and wonderful rounded tree forms that instantly bring to mind the handling of foliage in his famous Slope at the National Gallery in Athens, show how the painter exploited the expressive nature of his formal repertoire to offer a poetic, idealised experience of the landscape. As noted by Z. Papantoniou, "Parthenis's landscapes take us to the world of ideas. His eye sees into the ideal, as ours does into the natural. The humblest of his trees reveals a thought."³

The work should be dated from the early 1900s, just before or after the artist's return to Athens following his seven-year stay (1897-1904) in Vienna.⁴ In this great centre of European modernism Parthenis became familiar with Viennese Jugendstil and especially the work of Gustave Klimt. The poetic atmosphere, subtle colour harmonies, absence of human figures, solemn remoteness and sharp brushstrokes that transform the canvas into a gleaming tapestry of colour touches, leave no doubt that Parthenis had assimilated the achievements of the great Viennese symbolist⁵ (compare G. Klimt, Roses under trees, c. 1905, Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

¹ See also E. Mathiopoulos, "The reception of Parhtenis' Work" in Art Grows Feathers in Pain [in Greek], Potamos editions, Athens 2005, pp. 574-594.
² Z. Papantoniou, "The Art of Parthenis" [in Greek], Patris daily, January 19, 1920.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Compare C. Parthenis, Misty lake, sold by Bonhams, Greek Sale, May 15, 2007, lot 83.
⁵ The square format Parthenis used here played a central role in Viennese Jugendstil and perfectly suited Klimt's search for peace and balance. It was also used by Monet to increase the feeling of tranquillity, and to direct attention on the orchestration of the colours and harmonies within the painting. See S. Koja, Gustave Klimt Landscapes, Prestel editions, New York 2006, p. 61.