Nicos Hadjikiriakos-Ghika

Countryside is an important example of Ghika's lyrical depictions of the Greek landscape he so admired, with sinuous line and lyrical dynamic paths and rocky arches that lead the eye over an almost-abstract architectural network, with strong expressionist strokes and vivid blocks of colour. This pulsing and contorted landscape is a familiar idiom in the oeuvre of Ghika, but his earlier angular geometry is cast aside for an even more emotional and directly descriptive rendering. With a virtuoso wealth of strokes and hues, the present work presents a rich display of Ghika's painterly skill.

Beginning and ending his life in Greece, Nikos Hadjikiriakos-Ghika began his artistic scholarship under Constantinos Parthenis in Athens, relocating to Paris to enrol at the Sorbonne, the Ranson Academy and the studio of Dimitris Galanis. This erudite, well-travelled and sophisticated background would nourish a hungry mind, open to the concept of an analytic and mathematical form of modernism. This visual vocabulary owed much to the methodical teaching of Parthenis, with its emphasis on geometric principles, the Byzantine art that Ghika cherished, incorporating its 'strictness, the geometric, hierarchy,' and the work of artistic luminaries of the Parisian modernist enclave such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (in Marina Lambraki-Plaka, ed., Four Centuries of Greek Painting, Athens, 1999, p. 139).

Ghika's impressive oeuvre typifies the Greek early twentieth century preoccupation with creating pictorial languages at once international and quintessentially Greek. Indeed, as Fani-Maria Tsigakou has pointed out, Ghika's 'geometrical spaces (...) are often imbued with metaphysical significance. In his open-air scenes he stresses the Greekness of nature by alluding to classical and oriental pictorial traditions. In his sparklingly coloured and carefully composed landscapes he not only managed to capture the dazzling Mediterranean light, but also introduced a modernist spirit into viewing the classic Greek landscape.' (Fani-Maria Tsigakou, Nikos Hadjikyriacos-Ghika, Grove Art Dictionary).