Achilleas Aperghis started out with figurative depictions centered on the human figure, full-body or bust, and then proceeded, mainly after 1950, to more abstract “anthropomorphic” shapes, finally reaching a non-figurative form of expression. Abandoning traditional materials, he followed the trend of the times and turned to iron, bronze and the smelting and welding of metals. The develoyment of the form in space, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, was of especial interest to him in his endeavor to create an impression of flight. His preoccupation with the field of non-figurative expression would later lead him to the rejection of conventional sculptural depiction and to a conceptual approach to problems, expressed through environments and installations, directly connected to his existential anguish.
His environments with “Ladders”, which were presented for the first time in 1978, first in wood and then in bronze, but also as isolated compositions containing ladders of various sizes, were the result of his quests in the field of environments and installations, combined, however, with his return to the use of elements of figurative representation, and constitute signs of ascent and endeavor, suggesting an outlet for knowledge.
Yannoulis Chalepas was an extraordinarily gifted artist. Yet, his life and career as an artist were branded by the outbreak of a mental illness, which led to his institutionalisation at the mental hospital on Corfu and to a 40-year hiatus in his work. The first symptoms of a deviating behaviour became manifest in 1878, at which time the first period of his creative production came to an end.
During that period, Chalepas was thematically inspired by the Greek Antiquity and mythology, in accordance with the neoclassical spirit which prevailed in 19th-century Greek sculpture. “Satyr Playing with Eros” is a characteristic work in this respect. It is, moreover, the first of 12 related works made by the sculptor.
In this first variation, Chalepas created an open, multi-axial composition of vivid motion, reminiscent of Hellenistic art, able to be viewed from multiple points, characteristic of his work in general. Neoclassical elements can be identified in the nudity of the figures, the rendering of the eyes without pupils and irises, as well as in the soft, almost impeccably polished surface of the marble, which enables the light to glide smoothly. The tender body of Eros is projected upon the shadow of the Satyr’s breast. Contrary to many images depicting satyrs as repugnant old men, Chalepas chiselled the figure of an adolescent, whose dual nature is only evoked by a short tail at the base of the spine, the pointed ears and the two small horns, which can barely be seen high on the forehead.
The first effect created by the work is of a joyful scene, full of innocence and insouciance. Yet, upon a closer look, it becomes apparent that the Satyr’s grin is a mocking one, and his expression is cruel and disparaging. It is in vain that little Eros is trying to reach for the grapes.
What is evoked here for the first time is the sculptor’s relationship with his father. Chalepas’s father had been opposed to his son’s artistic vocation right from the start. From 1918 until 1936, Chalepas made 11 more works on the theme of Satyr and Eros in clay or plaster. These works reflect Chalepas’s gradual liberation from the tyrannical figure of the father.
Yannoulis Chalepas was a uniquely gifted artist. But his life and artistic development were marked by the manifestation of mental illness that led to confinement in a psychiatric hospital on the island of Corfu and a forty-year hiatus in his artistic production. The first symptoms of aberrant behavior presented in 1878, the same year that he completed his first body of work, referred to by historians as the “first period.”
“Satyr’s Head” is among the last works of Yannoulis Chalepas’ first creative period. A realistic, highly modeled figure, it is a virtually psychographic, personal portrait of a mature man. The vivid, penetrating gaze and enigmatic smile establish the figure’s personality. The smile appears at once sarcastic or demonic and melancholy, depending on the angle from which it is regarded. In fact, this piece caused Chalepas such emotional distress that he tried to destroy it by scratching and throwing clay at it.
Leonidas Drossis belonged to the first generation of modern Greek sculptors who studied at the Athens School of Arts and were shaped in the spirit of neoclassicism that was brought to Greece by the German sculptor Christian Siegel. Broadening his education at the Munich Academy under Max Widnmann and with trips to Paris, London, Dresden, Vienna and Rome, where he opened a workshop, he would prove to be the most important representative of Greek neoclassicism.
During his residence in Munich, Drossis became acquainted with the founder of the Academy of Athens, Baron Simon Sinas. In 1860 Sinas decided to offer him the commission for the construction of the four pediments on the Academy as well as all the sculptural decoration of the building later on. In the end, Drossis did only the central pediment, whose theme was the “Birth of Athena”. During that same year he presented the model at the Olympia exhibition along with two earlier models, winning the gold medal.
The seated figure of Zeus commands the center of the composition, framed by Athena and Hephaestus, while a little further on Hera observes everything jealously and at the same time Iris is ready to make her joyful announcement of the birth. The remaining groups are connected with the central composition and the ends are closed off with the figures of the rising sun and the falling night. The composition is done in complete agreement with the spirit of neoclassicism and, just as the rest of the decoration of the Academy, serves as a symbol of Greece reborn, while the sculpture itself constitutes an indissoluble part of the architecture done in agreement with ancient prototypes.
Ioannis Vitsaris was a sculptor who, along with Dimitrios Filippotis, transcended the limits of neoclassicism which then dominated modern Greek sculpture and introduced realism. In the First Cemetery of Athens are to be found certain of his most representative works, such as the “Mourning Spirit” on the family tomb of Nikolaos Koumelis.
The “Mourning Spirit”, the angel of death comes, as an iconographic type, from Hellenistic and Roman tomb sculpture and was a motif particularly dear to the hearts of makers of neoclassicist funerary monuments. It was brought to Greece by the German sculptor Christian Siegel. In the form introduced we see a naked angel, standing in relief, holding a torch upside down, symbol of life that has been extinguished. This original motif was subsequently varied and enriched with other funeral symbols, such as the seeds of the poppy – indication of eternal sleep – and the butterfly – symbol of the departing soul. Fully carved, it represents him seated in a thoughtful pose or fallen face forward and mourning, holding an urn of ashes.
Ioannis Vitsaris based himself on the latter type, but stripped of any supplementary element or symbol. It is thus adapted to the realistic style, which aspires to express emotional situations by means of the work itself without the use of standardized symbols. His “Mourning Spirit”, having grieving “Morpheus” by Jean-Antoine Houdon as its iconographic model, is itself transformed into a symbol of grief and mourning as, fallen on the tomb, with his head on his right arm and his body tucked into a ball, the figure mourns for the dead person.
Manolis Tzombanakis focused on the human figure right from the start of his career. At the same time, he preferred to express himself through representation, but with a non-figurative bent, forming his own personal style from early on. His subjects, taken from everyday life, history or myth, often have an allegorical content or constitute a means of protest on a social or political level.
The compositions with horses or mounted figures, to which “Bucephalus” belongs, occupied him from 1972 to 1979 and despite the fact they can be connected to Greek tradition, in reality they were inspired by the Uprising at the National Technical University of Athens in 1973, against the dictatorship. Tzombanakis wanted to express the burden this dramatic event in recent Greek history placed on him as well as his protest against tyranny of any kind by using symbolic elements from other periods, but with clear allusions. “Bucephalus”, the unruly horse of Alexander the Great that only he managed to tame, is built of geometric volumes and is rendered in an intense and daring movement, expressing the momentary, an element which characterizes the artist’s compositions during that period, and echoes the dynamic movement hidden in the works of the Futurists and especially those by Umberto Boccioni.
Even though he died at the age of forty, Yerassimos Sklavos left behind a rich and comprehensive body of work, largely based on research and on experimentation with the processing of materials. Until 1959, he was mainly concerned with the depiction of the human figure, first in a realistic and then in an abstract and stylised approach, as the artist had an inclination towards abstraction, and therefore his adoption of abstract forms was only a matter of time. From this period comes “Icarus”, made in plaster before 1957, when he left for Paris on a Greek state scholarship. Whereas other figures of the same period are modelled in serene and balanced poses, “Icarus” masterfully combines in a single perpendicular motion the rise and fall through a blurring of the lines between limbs and wings and the dramatic convolution of the body.
Lazaros Lameras was among the vanguard of abstraction in Greece. His stay in Paris in 1938-1939 played a definitive role in this choice.
He created his first abstract works in the period 1945 to 1948, among which was “Penteli”. The work originally carried the poetic title, “Penteli in Ecstasy” and as such was shown in the first postwar Panhellenic exhibition of 1948. In fact, it was the first abstract sculpture to be formally exhibited in Greece.
The inspiration for the piece was the mountain in Attica that had provided the marble for many important works of sculpture dating back to antiquity. Lameras has carved a small composition that combines vertical and horizontal motifs with gentle curves and an almost perfectly smooth surface, thus arriving at a pure form that echoes the enterprise of Constantin Brancusi.
