065. GHIKAS Nikos (Hatzikyriakos) (1906-1994)

Strepsiadis 1951

Signed & dated ?/tempera on hardboard 72×48 cm

€ 4.000 – 6.000

Monumental depiction of Strepsiadis, the old Athenian from the Aristophanes’ comedy, “Clouds” (Nefeles) which masterfully captures all the features of the protagonist. The artist attributes tension to the gaze, as well as the emotional intensity of a particular instant; his use of coarse, rigid lines, an emphasis on sketching and on the expressionist distortion, particularly in the face-mask, and his borrowing elements from folk art contribute to it. He achieves an amazing visualization of the uneducated, coarse peasant, whose very name refers to derailment. Desperately miserable and drowning in debt, Strepsiadis is depicted with exceptional pictorial energy and explosive liveliness. Hatzikyriakos-Ghikas further endowed his painting with both immediacy and a grotesque frenzy by emphasizing volumes, abstract design, morphic purity, simplicity of expression and of the plastic values as well as highly schematic performance in matters of color, form and articulation of the volumes.