NIKOS HADJIKYRIAKOS-GHIKA (1906-1994) Amalthia

NIKOS HADJIKYRIAKOS-GHIKA (1906-1994)
Amalthia
signé et daté "Ghika 70" en bas à gauche
acrylique sur papier
76 x 55,5 cm. (29 15/16 x 21 7/8in.)
Peint en 1970.

signed and dated "Ghika 70" lower left
acrylic on paper
Provenance
Private collection, Athens.

"Nature... Mythology... Greeks are nurtured in mythology. Now as I write, I'm thinking of one of Ghika's paintings based on a tantalizing myth. Titled Amaltheia, it shows a goat chewing a green branch on one side and on the other an amorphous figure almost one with the vegetation."¹

Tightly designed and visually dynamic, Amaltheia is a luxuriant, paganistic work of Dionysian contemplation, aptly illustrating Ghika's innovative approach to nature: "The artist discovers pulsating rhythms derived from his intimate relationship with nature. I want the viewer to feel the knife used to carve out nature. I want them to even feel the music, the sounds emanating from the orchestration of different forms, different shapes, different lines and not only the orchestration but, if possible, even the inherent scent they exude, which is the most elusive sense of all."²

For Ghika, nature was pantheistic and pagan, experienced as a cosmogony and invested, even in the humblest of shoots, with ancient myths. In 1958, the artist was invited by the State Department to visit the USA and returned to Greece by way of the Far East. Inspired perhaps by Japanese calligraphy's pronounced gestures and constant flow of brush and pen, his landscapes became denser and more mystical, while their angular geometry gave way to a whirlpool of interwoven lines and forms engaged in a perpetual, Dionysian dance.

This paganistic environment is further animated by the inclusion of a goat and an elegant female form that recalls Ingres's graceful odalisques. In Greek mythology, Amaltheia may refer to the goat that suckled the infant Zeus in a mountain cave on the island of Crete, or to the nymph who fed him the milk of a goat. According to some stories, the goat was a child of Helios, while Zeus was advised that the animal's skin would make him invulnerable in his battle against the Titans. According to Ovid, the goat broke one of her horns and Amaltheia filled it with fruit and took it to Zeus. This seems the earliest preserved source for the Horn of Amaltheia, the horn of plenty, also known as the Cornucopia in Roman mythology, which had the power to furnish whatever food or drink anyone desired.³

¹. H. Livas, Contemporary Greek Artists, Vantage Press, New York 1993, pp. 6-7.
². Transcribed excerpts from the 'Monogramma' television documentary, ERT-2, 1984 in Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika [in Greek], Tegopoulos editions, 2009, p. 150.
³. See T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth, vol. I, Johns Hopkins University Press editions, Baltimore 1993, p. 41; E. Hamilton, Mythology, Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, Mentor Book editions, New York 1942, p. 287.