46. Constantinos Maleas (Greek, 1879-1928) Vue de Lavrio signé en grec (en bas à droite) huile sur carton 32.5 x 49cm (12 13/16 x 19 5/16in). signed in Greek (lower right) oil on card Provenance Private collection, Athens. Bonhams London, The Greek Sale, 9 April 2014, lot 29. Acquired from the above sale by the present owner. An inspired transformation of an ascetic coastal landscape into a powerful visual language of undulating forms, this strikingly beautiful painting, which may have been included in Maleas's 'Attic Seashore' series exhibited in 1920-1921, perfectly justifies the artist's reputation as the quintessential master of the Greek landscape. (Compare Lavrio, 1918-1920, National Gallery - A. Soutzos Museum, Athens). Focusing on shapes and textures rather than realistic details and using richly-layered brushstrokes, sharp outlines and bold colouring, the artist entrusted his subject to the truth of vision, creating a dynamic tension between nature and abstraction, surface pattern and depth. Following in the steps of the great Cezanne who exhorted painters to look for solidity and permanence, he rendered the natural environment not only as coloured patterns of light that would have satisfied an impressionist eye, but also as a complex system of volume, mass and structure, venturing to penetrate into the inner world of the landscape and discover its enduring character and essential content. Similarly, Maleas endeavoured to transcend impressionism in the rendering of space, suggesting recession into depth not by diminution of tonal contrast but through arrangement of form in a sequence of planes. The distant mountains are as lucid and vibrant as the foreground rocks, while both land and sky, with their pronounced materiality and whirling, full-bodied forms, participate equally in the miracle of nature. This emphasis on the curvilinear results in a dynamic and rhythmical work, rich in expressive content, recalling the influential aesthetic writings of P. Yannopoulos: "The unique lines of the Greek outdoors create beautiful, rounded shapes, occasionally soaring upwards with vigorous, adolescent agility only to return with a seagull's lightness to a gentle rhythm."1 1 P. Yannopoulos, The Greek Line. [in Greek], Anatoli magazine, March 1903.