On top of the earth, majestically covered by the rich red ochre of the color simplex of Polygnotus and Byzantine religious painting, the geometric mountains—a memory of Byzantine heritage—and some still standing pillars left over from Greek Antiquity, the remnants of a temple, enrich the reality of the image, like the clusters of shrubs, like an ancient body, elements of narration, ornaments and delights of light and presence. Presence of history, a continuous affirmation of the flow of time, a legacy that becomes the present, an ever-present legacy. Featuring the simplicity and directness of folk painting, the fustanella-dressed heroes of 1821, villagers of the recent history of Modern Greece, point to an unseen path of continuity, while the mother, merged into one with the earth, like another Virgin Mary, rocks the cradle of the infant, a crib of identity, a cradle of national conscience.
That is the narrative of the painting by Photis Kontoglou, a proponent of the Byzantine tradition, a believer of Christian hope, a humble icon painter-narrator of a homeland, a dazzled lover of nature and its sanctity, whose hand embellished the thread of conscience.
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Χρονολογία: 1933
Υλικό: Λάδι σε μουσαμά
Διαστάσεις: 31,5 x 43 cm
Αρ. Έργου: Π.10515
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