65. 65AR YANNIS TSAROUCHIS (1910-1989) Zephyros - Eros signed in Greek and dated "4-3-64" lower right acrylic on paper 49,5 x 31,5 cm (19 1/2 x 12 3/8in.) Painted in 1964. signed and dated in Greek "4-3-64" lower right acrylic on paper Provenance A. Iolas collection. Private collection, Athens. Exhibitions Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, The Spirit and the Body, The Revival of the Olympic Idea 19th-20th Century, May 15, 1989 - January 15, 1990, no. 199 (discussed and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 187). Athens, Benaki Museum, Yannis Tsarouchis 1910-1989, December 18, 2009 - March 14, 2010, no. 244 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 192). Discussing this painting in 1989, Nelli Misirli, senior curator at the National Gallery in Athens, noted: "In this realist portrait of a model in a staged pose, prevails the spiritual dimension that elevates it to an idealised symbol with a lyrical and sensual quality. It is, after all, the world of ideas that marks Tsarouchis's work, the great winged Eros that leads to a visionary state and transcends the specificity of the sitter."¹ We are reminded of D. Kapetanakis who had noted as early as 1937 that "with the wisdom of his art, Tsarouchis managed to elevate a model posing in his studio into a symbol of the Modern Greek spirit."² In Tsarouchis's work Eros is usually shown personified as a wreathed, victorious youth and as bearer of good news. He's holding a bouquet of blossoms or a branch of fruit to suggest spring and love. The winged Zephyr is also one of the artist's beloved allegorical subjects that revives an archetypal universe of serene rhythms and evokes a classical sense for human scale. According to ancient Greek mythology, Zephyr, the personification of the westerly, the sweetest and mildest of winds, rescued the all-beautiful Psyche from the fearful serpent. He was also known as the messenger of spring and the bringer of early breezes that signalled the awakening of nature after the lassitude of winter. Here, silently immobile in his shallow space like a precious butterfly pressed under glass, the artist's signature male subject, with libellule (dragonfly) wings, conveys a lyrical tone and a mood of serenity and grace, celebrating the purely pictorial realisation of a symbol's everlasting value. Truthfulness of vision and honesty of representation build up a solid edifice of pure form, an ideal world liberated from the fleeting moment. Painted in earthy colours highlighted by solid outlines and set against a monochromatic background, the young sitter conveys a striking immediacy and resilient allure, echoing Fayum panels, Byzantine icons or Renaissance portraits. As noted by the late Director of the National Gallery in Athens M. Lambraki-Plaka, "Tsarouchis's figures managed to survive the iconoclastic crusade of modern art, which never tired to demolish, distort or expel the human form. Tsarouchis did not give in to this negative aesthetic theory which preached the systematic rejection of the rules of Western tradition. He is one of the few painters who managed to cross the tempestuous 20th century by keeping intact the precious palladium of the human figure. His art is a modern day incarnation of Noah's Ark."³ ¹. The Spirit and the Body, The Revival of the Olympic Idea 19th-20th Century [in Greek], exhibition catalogue, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens 1989, p. 187. ². D. Kapetanakis, "Yannis Tsarouchis, Return to Roots", Nea Grammata magazine, 1937 as reprinted in Tsarouchis [in Greek], Zygos, Athens 1978, pp. 7-8. ³. M. Lambraki-Plaka, "Yannis Tsarouchis and the Palladium of Painting" [in Greek] in Osei Myra, Yannis Tsarouchis 1910-1989, Kastaniotis editions, Athens 1998, p. 452.