45. Yiannis Moralis (Greek, 1916-2009) Épithalamique signé et inscrit en grec et daté '1968' (en bas à droite); signé et daté 'MORALIS/ATHENES/1958' (au revers) acrylique sur toile 150.5 x 150.5cm (59 1/4 x 59 1/4in). signed and inscribed in Greek and dated (lower right); signed and dated (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas Provenance Private collection, Athens. Expositions Athens, Zoumboulakis Gallery, Moralis, March 1972, no. 9 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue). Athens, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Yannis Moralis, April 18 - June 5, 1988, no. 62 (listed in the exhibition catalogue, p. 66). Littérature I. Petropoulos, Elytis, Moralis, Tsarouchis, Pleias editions, Athens 1974, p. 94 (listed), p. 134 (illustrated). Sima magazine, no. 22, March 1979, p. 43 (illustrated). Yannis Moralis, Commercial Bank of Greece Group of Companies edition, Athens 1988, no. 169, p. 166 (illustrated). C. Christou, Moralis, Adam editions, Athens 1993, no. 100 (illustrated). A milestone Moralis that stood out in the 1972 one man show for the dazzling whiteness of its sculptural forms set against a Mondrianesque grid of vivid colour, this monumental Epithalamio seems to recapitulate the artist's figurative achievement while boldly embarking on a new phase of pure abstraction. The pulsing balance between ochres, blues, reds and greys, shifting in temperature from warm to cool, conveys a tensile image of aethereal, almost musical beauty that captured the hearts and minds of the viewers. The abstractive motifs that distantly echo fragments of an ancient Greek temple, the shallow compositional depth, reminiscent of sculptural relief, and the rectangular format that alludes to the Doric metope, revive an archetypal universe from which the human form emerges. The symbolic figure of the young woman, the loving embrace, the angel1 on the upper left, the clear skies indicated by luminous patches of blue, and the serene rhythm dictated by the classical sense for human scale, compose an evocative representation informed by the timeless values of ancient Greek art. Paradoxically, the more 'modern' Moralis became the more classical, the more 'ancient' he tended to be."2 Echoing age-old memories of antiquity's nuptial songs dedicated to the bride and sung on the way to her marital chamber, Moralis's famed epithalamia series represent both a continuation of and a departure from his epitymvia compositions. Defined by an intricate fabric of highly abstractive shapes, the pictorial space celebrates the erotic union of man and woman with their bodies often merging into a single form. Prefacing the 1972 show, Nobel laureate Odysseus Elytis noted that by using a limited vocabulary of form, Moralis has succeeded—in a manner unprecedented in Greek art—to transform the language of the natural world into a purely optical phenomenon. "Memories and encounters are repeatedly distilled until they blend into forms of great simplicity and precision. ... The earth of Aegina and the bodies of young girls emerge with the dampness of the sea, like magnified fragments of ancient Greek vases or miniature frescoes from a bygone place of worship. ... A longing for the monumental has always driven the painter's hand to organise and balance his forms on an intellectual edifice, bestowing on even his most sensual conceptions a feeling of mystery and a Biblical sense of the sacred."3 1 The angel is a recurrent theme in Moralis' art, frequently signified by just one wing. See Y. Moralis, Angels, Music, Poetry [in Greek], exhibition catalogue, Benaki Museum, Athens 2001. 2 M. Lambraki-Plaka, "Yannis Moralis, a 20th Century Classic" in A Tribute to Yannis Moralis, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - A. Soutzos Museum, Athens 2011, p. 12. 3 O. Elytis, preface to the Moralis exhibition catalogue, Iolas-Zoumboulakis Galerie, Athens 1972.