Yannis Moralis - Juvenilia

This exhibition covered the work of eleven Greek artists who were influenced by the major events of the 20th century: WWII, the occupation of Greece by the Germans and the famine that ensued; the Civil War that followed the end of the war, and how it divided the nation; finally the seven years of the military dictatorship that brought so much suffering to the Greek people. 

In the exhibition we were shown how each artist's work developed and changed as they matured and how some moved on to abstraction. I will cover the work of one artist in each post.

Yannis Moralis in Juvenilia at Benaki Museum, Pireos, Athens.

Yannis Moralis was a key figure of the 'Generation of the 1930s', a group of writers, poets and visual artists who were key in the development of Greek Modernism; by combining movements such as surrealism and abstraction with the vernacular style, they created a mix beguiling mix of innovation and tradition. These experiments coincided with a surge of hope and optimism in Greece, as the country emerged from the strife of WWII and the subsequent Greek Civil War which ended in 1949. The group also included Yannis Tsarouchis, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika and Nikos Engonopoulos.

One of the recurrent motifs in Moralis' early work was the female nude. His detailed studies of the female form can be seen as a modern take on Ancient Greek beauty ideals which were so vividly captured in the classical sculptures and reliefs. From the late 1950s onwards, he started to incorporate abstraction into his figurative compositions. This was a gradual shift. Forms were repeatedly distilled until they blended into forms of great simplicity and precision. His late compositions were geometrical, painted in striking colours, their shapes totally deconstructed. Total abstraction.

Love - Hope, 1934, (woodcut on paper)

Love, Pleasure, Mother, 1933, (woodcut on wood)

Cafe, 1939, (woodcut on paper)

Nude, 1947, (oil on canvas)

Nude, 1939, (oil on canvas)

Seated Nude, 1952, (oil on canvas)

Portrait of the Painter Theodossios Christodoulou, 1939, (oil on canvas)

Portrait of Ioanna N. Lourou, 1949, (oil on canvas)

The Table, 1947, (oil on canvas)

Funerary Composition II, 1958-62, (oil on canvas)

Girl Painting, 1979, (oil on canvas)




 

The Island, 1976, (acrylic on canvas)

This is what Moralis gradually moved to, and this is the art he is associated with the most: abstract, austere, frugal style, dominated by flatness and a rendering of forms without tonal gradations, a two-dimensional view of space, and the absence of a light source. I love it.