- 124
Georgios Bouzianis
Description
- Georgios Bouzianis
- Aktgruppe (two nudes)
- signed J. Bouzianis and inscribed and numbered Athen no. 27 on the reverse
- oil on canvas
- 105 by 80cm., 41¼ by 31½in.
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature
Catalogue Note
Widely regarded as Greece's leading Expressionist painter, Bouzianis was deeply influenced by the avant-garde currents with which he came into contact while in Munich from 1907-1934. Whilst in Germany, Bouzianis became associated with the two groups of Expressionist painters Die Brücke - which counted among its members Kirchner, Schmitt-Rottluff, Pechstein and Nolde, and Der blaue Reiter, led by Kandinsky and Franz Marc.
Bouzianis believed that through painting he could express innermost human feelings. In his work it is obvious that his own questioning led him away from faithful rendering of nature to depicting the agony of Man in his everyday inner struggle. In his early portraits, Bouzianis keeps the outward characteristics of a familiar and composed personality. Later, the outer form of the human figure becomes secondary, giving way to expression of the artist's soul through broken lines and swirling colours.
The present work differs from conventional depictions of the nude by virtue of its dynamic brushstrokes, and tonal qualities, which imbue the painting with great intensity.
George Mourelos compared Bouzianis' artistic output to music: '[Bouzianis'] work is dominated by the human 'landscape', the human face and human body, through which he expresses the tragedy of human fate, which in reality is life itself. His painting space acquires an organic completeness. He creates such a relationship between figures and depth, that depth appears to be the extension of each figure, so that one has the impression of colours in continuous motion, which come and go from surface to depth and vice-versa – something that gives each motif an inner vibration. Colours vibrate in their full scale, while each work expresses an incomparable painted orchestration, where every colour mass advances towards the depth of the picture and creates its own inner melody, awakening all the harmonious sounds that accompany it. The painting of Bouzianis is basically painted music, where each chromatic tone penetrates the other ones, thus creating an unbreakable unity. Bouzianis – as he himself used to say – had the ability to 'hear' colours and find the right tone when tuning his instrument. This is evident also in the way he contrasts cool and warm colours, as for instance blue and green, which he particularly likes, with pink and ochre. Blue usually functions as an inner sky, out of which emerge quite often the corporeal phantoms that are Bouzianis' figures' (George Mourelos, in Georgios Bouzianis, exh. cat., National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens, 1977 pp. 31-32).