- 106
Yannis Moralis
Description
- Yannis Moralis
- Full Moon L
- signed in Greek and dated 1977 lower right; signed, dated and inscribed Athènes-Grèce on the reverse
- acrylic on canvas
- 196 by 178cm., 77¼ by 70in.
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature
Chrisantos Christou, Moralis, Athens, 1993, no. 171, illustrated
Odysseus Elytis, 'A Yearning for Monumentality', in Zygos, Athens,1985, IV, p. 74, catalogued & illustrated
Catalogue Note
Painted in 1977, this monumental, harmonious and deeply poetic work shows Moralis at the height of his powers. As Maria Katsanaki has written of the artist's oeuvre, 'his creative work, both in its realistic and geometric stage, is first and foremost anthropocentric, with Eros and Thanatos its axes' (Maria Katsanaki, in Four Centuries of Greek Painting, p. 671).
The tension between suggestiveness and abstraction is a hallmark of Moralis' mature work, as Kyriakos Koutsomallis has observed: '1976 marks the beginning of a period devoted exclusively to geometric abstraction. Forms now become wholly immaterial, dissolving into pure schemata. Their monumental character does not reduce their sensuality. On the contrary, eroticism acquires its transcendental expression. In no way does their sensual robustness - only vaguely reminiscent of nude human figures - take anything away from their graceful tenderness, lyrical quality and richness' (Kyriakos Koutsomallis, 'The Painting of Yannis Moralis, A Tentative Approach', in Y. Moralis, Traces (exh. cat.), Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Andros, 2008, pp. 18-19).
The continuous thread through Moralis' oeuvre is his preoccupation with the human form, and notably the female form. As Dimitris Papastamos has pointed out, 'In his work, which is based on a homogenous style, the connecting link between one picture and another is the human body, the female body, depicted with an ample, well-rounded figure reflecting the physical type of his various models. This type, for which he always showed a penchant from boyhood on, is as much a hallmark of Moralis' work as the sailor (...) is to Tsarouchis, or the building labourer to Diamandopoulos. And even though it fades out to some extent after 1950, it was always present deep down in the artist's mind: the memory of woman's physical form remained with him forever, and his aesthetic and moral ideal is embodied in that type in all his work (...) From the curvaceous lines of his nudes in the 1940s his attention gradually shifted to the limbs. Whereas the figures in his earlier works had given hardly a hint of mobility, from now on the movements flow from every joint (...). The power that is present in these bodies is no longer that of sensuality and eroticism but that of dynamic equilibrium and a feeling of life.' (Commercial Bank of Greece ed., Yannis Moralis, Athens, 1988, p. 21). While Moralis used a variety of techniques in his attempt to capture the essence of womanhood, he increasingly eliminated the body's material substance in his works, often accentuating outlines and producing an effect of flatness.
The origins of Moralis abstract work, of which Full Moon L is a fine example, lie in the portraits he painted during the German occupation (1941-44), which were characterised by a restricted palette, an opposition of light and shadow, and a concern for the flattening of form and space. His preoccupation with compositional structure and colour relationships is paramount in Full Moon L, which has both a delicate formal balance between its light and dark forms and a chromatic harmony overall.