Description
GEORGIOS JAKOBIDES (1852-1932)
Children’s symphony
signed with initials (lower right)
oil on canvas
72 x 97 cm.
Painted in 1894
Provenance Private collection, Athens since 1940.
Christie’s Greek Sale of 15/12/98, Lot 24.
Acquired from the above sale by the present owner.
Exhibited
Athens, National Gallery - A. Soutzos Museum, Georgios Jakobides Retrospective, November 14, 2005 - January 30, 2006 (listed and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 182).
Literature
O. Mentzafou-Polyzou, Jakobides, Adam editions, Athens 1999, p. 344 (listed), pp. 141-144 (discussed), p. 142 (illustrated).
One of the star lots of the auction, Children’s symphony1 is an important work bringing together two of Jakobides’s most famous and beloved pictures, namely Children’s concert at the National Gallery in Athens and Children’s symphony formerly in the esteemed Loulis-Kraniotis collection.
In this tender and perceptive painting, a country house interior is depicted, in which a group of children has created an improvised orchestra for the amusement of the little girl who, supported by her mother, joyously reaches out for them, eager to embrace the magic of music. This lively scene conveys the excitement children feel when playing with simple objects, listening to new sounds or making music. Following the rules of linear perspective, the floorboard lines converge as they recede into the distance, leading the eye to the black-clad grandmother sitting on the bench before the background window. She’s pressing her hands over her ears annoyed by the ruckus or even the discord of the makeshift orchestra, while on the right a big clay wood stove surrounded by a wooden bench balances the composition, its vertical form echoed by the window on the left. As noted by O. Mentzafou-Polyzou who prepared the artist’s monograph, “these two elements, namely the figure of the grandmother and the right-hand extension of the interior space with the clay stove and the wooden bench, have been omitted in Children’s concert, 1894, to become the subject of Children’s symphony, which Jakobides painted two years later, in 1896.”2 The whole scene is set against a neutral, monochromatic background rooted in ancient Greek relief sculpture and Byzantine icon painting, accentuating the action—a signature stylistic trait of the artist’s mature output.
Furthermore, the naturalistic rendering of children’s bodies is matched by their well-groomed appearance, reflecting the artist’s intention to position childhood within a specific social and cultural environment.
However, as noted by Athens University Professor of Sociology D. Makrynioti, “Jakobides provides the children with a certain outlet, a link between socialisation and contact with nature: he intentionally leaves some body parts uncovered, especially the children’s feet. The fact that the well cared-for children’s attire literally ends up in naked feet, reverts the child to its natural state simultaneously offering it a means to resist the social convention of clothing and proclaim its freedom.”3
In contrast to his output from the 1880s and early 1990s, Jakobides’s figures, rather than being depicted close to the viewer, are pushed back into the middleground and the background, where their bodies, lit on all sides, vibrate with life and motion. The diffused light animates the surfaces, while shady areas contribute to rendering volume. With meticulous observation, wealth of detail, subtle light and shadow effects, delicate tonalities and tender minuteness of touch, the artist produced a masterful genre scene full of poignant expression, gesture and body language, endowing the picture with a sense of genuineness and lively presence.
The warmth of family scenes and the playful antics of childhood informed the art of Jakobides almost from the outset of his career. Unsurpassed draughtsman, insightful psychologist and keen observer of human nature, he established his reputation as the quintessential painter of young children -kindermaler. Friedrich Pecht, a distinguished chronicler of the Munich School, along with many other esteemed art critics of his age, had noted as early as the 1880s that Jakobides had already gained recognition in the Bavarian world, especially due to his childhood scenes.4
As the great writer Pavlos Nirvanas once said of Jakobides, “the miracle of childhood is not something that anybody can capture on canvas. A child, with its still flexible, almost unformed bone structure, undefined and fleeting form and mercurial fluidity is hardly a shape per se. It is liquid, nebulous, a play of light both inner and outer, an entity both imaginary and animate. And within this agile and ever-changing miracle there is a soul that plays and moves and transforms under the enviable glimmerings of light on a watery surface. The painters who have managed to capture this miracle ‘in flight’ and fix it on a flat surface, as we do with butterflies careful not to disturb a single scale from their colourful wings, are but few. One of them is Jakobides.”5
1. On the left side of the canvas a vertical scale for transfer to a different size can be discerned.
2. O. Mentzafou-Polyzou, Jakobides [in Greek], Adam editions, Athens 1999, p. 144.
3. D. Makrynioti, “Looking for Children in the Work of Georgios Jakobides” in Georgios Jakobides Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - A. Soutzos Museum, Athens 2005, pp. 53-54.
4. H.G. Ludwig, “Georgios Jakobides and the Contemporary Artistic Scene in Munich” in Georgios Jakobides Retrospective, p. 37.
5. P. Nirvanas, “The Painter of Children” [in Greek], Pinakothiki journal, 12 (1912-13), 100-101. See also A. Kouria, The Child in Modern Greek Art (1833-1922) [in Greek], Dodoni editions, Athens - Yannina 1985, p. 58.
