MICHALIS ECONOMOU (1888-1933) Maison au bord de la mer

MICHALIS ECONOMOU (1888-1933)
Maison au bord de la mer
signé "M. Economou" en bas à gauche
huile sur panneau
36,5 x 53,5 cm. (14 3/16 x 20 7/8in.)

signed "M. Economou" lower left
oil on panel
Provenance
Sotheby's, Greek Sale, November 14, 2007, Lot 1.
Acquired at the above-mentioned sale by the current owner.

Exhibitions
Metsovo, E. Averoff Museum of Modern Greek Art - Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza Foundation / Athens, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music, Michalis Economou, The Alchemy of Painting, September 30, 1923 – January 15, 2024 / February 1 – May 12, 2024, no. 99 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 175).

Landscapes and houses that look as if they were made not only of human hands but by gods as well. Therefore, god-built, since time immemorial and for all eternity; well-wrought, well balanced, well-poised, uncluttered, austere, simple.
Aris Konstantinidis

Economou felt the heartbeat of the seaside landscape, capturing its character, while at the same time conveying his own emotional response to its evocative charm. Here, using swift and freely applied gestural brushstrokes, he distilled a mood of tenderness and poetry from an ordinary subject, transforming it into an image of humble monumentality. Exquisite in colour and tone, and faultless in design and execution, this poetic vision shows him in full command of his artistic powers.

The eye is invited into the picture through the barren piece of land in the foreground and then travels upwards following a pronounced diagonal that leads to the evocative adobe-like structure which rules over the pictorial space. As the composition unfolds, it reveals two female peasant figures chatting under a vine trellis with their backs towards the viewer. Handled with lively brushstrokes, they are harmoniously incorporated into their surroundings, welding natural environment, human presence, and man-made structures into a compelling entity. The stark juxtaposition of a luminous foreground and a dark background in the vein of van Gogh and the Nabis animates the pictorial field, while the uniform handling of energetic brushwork throughout the picture plane contributes to pictorial unity. The key expressive means here are the application of vivid, unmodulated colour in rigorous brushstrokes, the highly textured surface, and the tilting up of the foreground to eliminate the traditional illusion of receding space.

This luminous landscape suffused with golden light and settled with humble houses overlooking a wine-dark sea may very well be somewhere in Greece but, as noted by artist G. Rorris, "it would be a mistake to approach Economou's paintings expecting to identify places and things in their familiar form. This genuinely poetic painter knew that in art things are not what they started out to be but what they eventually become. A ceaseless becoming is therefore unfolding before our eyes. Houses turn out as they are because they have been eaten away by the water, the rain, the light, the wind, the saltiness of the sea. As a Greek, Economou became an heir to the beauty of ruins and fragments; he clearly appreciated the beauty of decay and was imbued with it. He turned his gaze to his homeland and rediscovered it in the small, shanty houses, in those 'god-built' structures, as architect Aris Konstantinidis would later call them."1

1. G. Rorris, "A Few Thoughts about Michalis Economou" in Michalis Economou, The Alchemy of Painting, exhibition catalogue, E. Averoff Museum of Modern Greek Art, Metsovo - Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza Foundation, 2023, p. 237.