45 - CONSTANTINOS PARTHENIS (1878-1967)

CONSTANTINOS PARTHENIS (1878-1967) L' Annonciation signé « C. Parthenis » (en bas au centre) huile sur toile 95 x 90 cm. (37.40 × 35.43 in.) oil on canvas Footnotes: Provenance Bernard Marmont du Haut Champ collection, Milan. Private collection, Athens. 'Annunciation is Parthenis's silent oratorio. Only a great artist can offer such gifts to humankind.' Z. Papantoniou A masterpiece of 20th century European art, Parthenis's Annunciation is a mesmerizing work of timeless elegance. Ethereal, idealised and weightless figures captured in translucent colours and feathery forms, occupy a purified world of universal peace and divine harmony, conveying an uplifting feel and provoking the viewer's emotional and spiritual participation. With its masterful design, deeply poetic atmosphere, abstractive stylisation of dematerialised form and audacious sense of newness, Annunciation lies at the very core of Parthenis's achievement. It beautifully reflects the vision of a great European artist laden with age-old memories, who was entranced by the optimism and boldness of the nascent twentieth century. During his seven-year stay (1897-1904) in Vienna, one of the great centres of European modernism, Parthenis became familiar with Viennese Jugendstil and especially the work of Gustave Klimt. As has been noted, 'The music of colours, first introduced by Klimt, was taken up only by Parthenis among Greek artists.'1 This kind of musical quality, poetic atmosphere, subtle colour harmonies and delicate flow of line, so evident in Annunciation, echo the achievements of the great Viennese artist. Later, during his stay in Paris (1909-1911), Parthenis came into close contact with symbolist circles, exposing himself to the work of Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and, most notably, Maurice Denis. The idealistic and mystical atmosphere of the French painter's religious works had a strong impact on Parthenis and nowhere is this more evident than in Annunciation, a work of heightened poetic and spiritual content, ethereal style, and evocative, transcendental atmosphere. This emblematic Parthenis is a fine example of painterly Symbolism, of which Denis was a lucid spokesman and the great Matisse a leading exponent. Handled with simplified forms and painted entirely in a restricted range of cool colours that endow the pictorial surface with an extraordinary luminosity, Annunciation creates an emotional effect which accentuates the encounter of the two figures-the Virgin Mary and the Angel-recalling Matisse's emblematic Conversation (1911). In both paintings, the action concentrates on the two main protagonists and is not diluted by the inclusion of other figures or secondary scenes. As a result, the dramatic intensity reaches its highest point, sustained entirely by purely pictorial means. The focused attention on the interaction of the two figures and the frugality of the compositional scheme, dominated by austere harmonies of shape and colour, endows the pictorial surface with additional vitality. Furthermore, both paintings allude to early Renaissance iconography: the verdant landscape seen through Matisse's window and the immaterial architecture in Parthenis's painting both echo the hortus conclusus, the walled garden symbolising Mary's undisturbed chastity. Although Matisse's picture is secular, there is something equally spiritual in the encounter of the two figures.2 An audacious modern work of spiritual uplift, Annunciation demonstrates an ingenious fusion of liberal artistic trends and modernist formal principles with traditional subject matter and the idealism inherent in symbolist themes. Drawing from indigenous cultural experiences, including archaic and classical Greek vase painting (note the gentle inclination of the Angel's head captured in sharp profile) and Byzantine conventions (seen in the austere postures and the peculiar, two-dimensional perspective), Parthenis formulates an entirely new 'Greek canon' based on the boldness of the artist's personal style and subjective interpretation. Deviating from standard medieval and Renaissance depictions that place the meeting within Mary's chambers, Parthenis sets the scene outdoors, in a vaguely defined space identified with the courtyard of the Holy Monastery of Zoodochos Pege on the island of Poros-where the artist spent eight months in 1907 executing the wall paintings for the church of Saint George. The action unfolds before the monastery's walled-in fountain, an allusion to Virgin Mary as a fountain of life. This specific staging, known as the Annunciation at the Fountain, can be seen in the 15th c. wall paintings of the Pantanassa Monastery in Mystras.3 Notably, Parthenis's composition shares a distinct iconographical element with the Mystras fresco: the potted basil plant in the lower right corner. According to Christian tradition, the basil is considered blessed because Saint Helen discovered the Holy Cross led by its fragrance. The vas