Spyros Papaloukas

Estate of the artist
Mina Papaloukas, the artist's daughter
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Ioniki Bank, Spyros Papaloukas, Athens, 1995, no. 63, illustrated

Papaloukas' profound appreciation and reverence for the beauty of the Greek countryside started at a young age, the artist himself stating: 'Ever since I was a small boy in my village, I explored my homeland inch by inch. I strolled the hills and vales, wandered along the paths, over the mountains with their gorges and streams, with their snows and rainfalls' (quoted by Marina Lambraki-Plaka, 'The Painting of Paploukas: A Spiritual Adventure', Spyros Papaloukas, Athens, 2007, p. 11).

The interpretation of space, as well as colour, light and tonal contrasts were of great interest to the artist. The present work reflects Maurice Denis' maxim 'a picture, before being a horse, a nude or some kind of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order' (Maurice Denis, Théories, Paris, 1920, p. 1). As Marina Lambraki-Plaka has noted, 'the alteration of light and dark fields articulates the composition, investing the surface with an inner pulse, making its rhythm more vivid and helping the eye explore the pictorial space' (quoted in Modern Greek Art – The 20^th Century, Athens, 1999, p. 36).

To Papaloukas, artistic creation thus centred quintessentially on two elements: shape and colour, and he maintained that art meant 'interpreting the hidden connection between objects, the unity of the world, which is the task of every artist and craftsman to comprehend and make visible to others by means of pure elements, that is to say, in the case of a painter, by means of form and colour' (quoted by M. Lambraki-Plaka in 'The Credo of Spyros Papaloukas', Zygos, Athens, 1983, pp. 49-50).