20. CONSTANTINOS MALEAS (1879-1928) Couche de soleil sur la mer huile sur carton 25 x 37 cm. (9.84 x 14.57 in.) Oil on card Provenance Athina Malea-Moumtzoglou (the artist's sister) collection, Athens, and then by descent. Exhibitions Athens, Zappeion Hall, Greek Artists Association group exhibition, April-May 1916, no. 231 (listed in the exhibition catalogue. p. 12). Literature A. Kotidis, The Painter C. Maleas (1879-1928), doctoral dissertation, Thessaloniki 1982, p. 308 (listed) A. Kotidis, Constantinos Maleas (1879-1928), Adam editions, Athens 2000, p. 364 (listed). This mesmerizing landscape of eye-smacking colours and deftly woven harmonies captures nature's chromatic brilliance and radiating poetry. Setting his easel outdoors, Maleas was able to retain the freshness of execution and fidelity to natural phenomena. He worked quickly and defiantly, his richly layered, dynamic brushstrokes verging on automatic physical responses to optical stimuli. His primary concern was to render the landscape's atmosphere, capturing colour fluctuations and fleeting effects of sparkling light reflected on the water in such an evocative manner that would convey the momentary elusiveness of a sense impression. Maleas's second period (1909-1917), launched with his first trip to the Orient, proved that his seven years in Paris, where he became familiar with the ground-breaking work of the leading impressionists, bore fruit. His canvases are now dominated by flat, textured surfaces, thick impasto, and generalised handling of volume akin to Monet's abstractive style of the same period. Here, the final outcome is a poetic and robust statement of powerful temperament and explosive energy. Form and colour are freed from their obligation to describe the world and become the subject of the painting, while the interplay of cool and warm tonalities charge the entire composition with a dream-like feel. Such qualities bestowed on Maleas his reputation as a great visual poet and one of the most important figures in Modern Greek art.