Lot 36: Michalis Economou (Greek, 1888-1933) Landscape 49 x 61 cm.

Michalis Economou
(Greek, 1888-1933)
Landscape indistinctly signed (lower right)oil on flannel 49 x 61 cm.

With a handwritten certification of authenticity from the artist's wife on the reverse of the canvas.Provenance: D. Pieridis collection.Private collection, Athens.Bonhams, The Greek sale, 12 December 2006, lot 98.Acquired from the above sale by the present owner.LiteratureA. Kouria, Michalis Economou, Adam publications, Athens 2001, p. 108 and 146 (illustrated). "To produce an accurate likeness of nature has no meaning. My intention is to convey emotion, as much emotion as possible." M. EconomouA superb painting of vibrating pulse and melodic rhythm, Landscape amply demonstrates M. Economou's interpretative approach to nature. Starting out from an impressionistic rendition of light and colour sensations, this true master of early 20th century Greek art adopts an abstractive vocabulary combined with an inward lyricism to formulate a new perception of the landscape. Nature (trees and mountains in the background) and man-made structures (farmhouses and cottages in the fore - and middle grounds) alike, with their stylised shapes, sinuous lines and undulating, curvilinear forms, become a screen on which the artist projects his inner world. Infused with an ethereal light and a dreamlike atmosphere, reality is transformed into images of a subjective truth charged with a symbolic, almost metaphysical import. Landscape probably dates after 1926, the year the artist returned to Greece from France, and was most probably completed in 1927, when he had his second one-man show in Athens and first showed his oils on flannel. Most of the works included in this exhibition were Greek landscapes - from Attica, the isle of Poros and elsewhere - and reveal a magnificent vagueness and poetic uncertainty of space. (In his later output, as the artist returned to oils on card and canvas, his resilient contours tend to harden and light becomes more specific.) "In 1927, his forms are freer and more graceful and there are no narratives or detailed descriptions. His brushstrokes don't leave a trace, his surfaces are unified, without contrasts, colours are diffused and outlines flow."1Reviewing his 1927 show, art critic Z. Papantoniou noted: "He is looking for new expressive means and materials that faithfully match his intentions. He paints on flannel - his 'fuzzy' canvases as he himself calls them, to better capture the iridescent greys, light blues and precious bright blacks."2 "With his 'fuzzy' canvases Economou proceeds to a more subjective interpretation of the natural environment. His vision has now changed. The landscapes, houses and trees, rendered in an elliptical, abbreviated manner without descriptive details, with flat surfaces on which his brushwork is now invisible and his colour scheme non-naturalistic, have assumed the semblance of visions. To realize his inspirational zeal, the artist uses white or coloured flannel that softens the tones and whose nap endows the surface with a peculiar, velvet-like texture, while lessening the definition of outlines. Objects seem to have lost their weight. The houses, rendered in curvilinear forms, have lost their volume; the trees have become ethereal cypresses and pines. His works, especially the ones on flannel, betray his appreciation of the expressive capacity of abstraction and simplification, a key principle of modern art."3 According to A. Kouria who prepared the monograph on the artist, "this output can be considered the most personal expression of Economou's art. The landscape, no longer just a pictorial space, becomes an expressive-symbolic field recording the artist's emotional and intellectual response to the stimuli offered by the natural environment. Light, colour and line become the main vehicles of the artist's feelings... An ambivalent sense of presence/absence suffuses these silent images, suspended between real time and memory, in a poetic 'timescape' where human presence is suggested rather than depicted. A latent energy, a secret, surreptitious life force enlivens these paintings."4In 1927, D. Kokkinos noted that the latest works by Economou were true works of poetry, but so masterfully rendered that their significance as paintings prevailed.5 As noted by Kouria, art critics of the time urged art lovers to hasten and purchase these works, stressing that some of them belonged in the National Gallery. In light of the critical and popular acclaim his two one-man shows (1926 and 1927) met with, it's no wonder that his works adorned the collections of major early 20th century Greek collectors, such as C. Loulis, G. Stringos and A. Benakis.6 1. E. Andreadi, Michalis Economou and his Relationship with the Surrounding Nature, Eikastika magazine, no. 24, December 1983, p. 35.2. Z. Papantoniou, Eleftheron Vima daily, 29.11.1927.3. A. Kouria, Michalis Economou, Zygos magazine, no. 56, Nov.-Dec. 1982, pp. 14, 15, 50. See also Kouria, Greek Painters and the Nabis Movement in Metamorphoses of the Modern, The Greek Experience (exh. cat.), National Gallery-A. Soutzos Museum, Athens 1992, pp. 379-385.4. Kouria, Michalis Economou [in Greek], Adam ed., Athens 2001, pp. 106-116. 5. as quoted in Kouria, Adam ed., p. 125.6. Kouria, Michalis Economou, p. 125.