“Composition,” will be featured in one of the top lots at Bonhams’ upcoming sale
Yiannis Moralis’ painting, “Composition,” will be featured in one of the top lots at Bonhams’ upcoming sale, “The Greek Sale,” which will be held on April 17, 2019, in London. The pre-auction estimate of this painting is £70,000 – £100,000. The current painting will be offered in lot 32 at the auction.
“Doric in its dignity and Ionian in its subtlety and elegance, Moralis’ ‘Composition’ captures the grandeur and aura of the classical not as a lifeless relic of ancient glory but as a form of eternity constantly reborn in the present. By ingeniously balancing lyrical sensitivity and ordered thought, the artist achieves a modern realization of the classical ideal: the elimination of the temporary, the elevation of form to a symbol and the initiation to a world of ideal rhythms, where form and spirit reclaim their fragmented wholeness,” states the auction house.
The current painting is composed of oil on canvas and it is signed in Greek and dated ‘1951’ on the lower left. It was painted in 1951 and has been under the ownership of a private collection in Athens. It has also been exhibited at Zappeion Hall, Athens and Benaki Museum, Athens.
Bonhams states in a press release, “In the early 1950s, Moralis turned towards classical antiquity and formulated a pictorial style highly imbued with pronounced elements of Greekness. He poses new and complex challenges. His means become simpler, frugal and more substantial, enriching his work with new expressive possibilities and values. He emphasizes schematization and moves to chromatic abstractions. His colors maintain the materiality of paint. His palette, inspired by the 5th-century painter Polygnotus, is limited to earthen tones, ochres, tonal gradations of blue and black, brick red and white. He insists on flatness, unity and the composition’s inner geometry, abandoning descriptive elements and details and concentrating on the essential, which leads him to a balance between form and content.”
The auction house further commented on the details and symbolism of this artwork and stated, “The monumental quality and purity of form, the subtle use of color and spatial relationships, the disciplined rhythm dictated by a deep sense for human scale, the serene atmosphere imbued with meditative silence and elegiac feeling, the shallow compositional depth reminiscent of sculptural relief, the composed immobility and the austerity of the horizontal and vertical lines that set up a perfectly balanced geometric edifice, echo the timeless values of Greek idealistic art.”
Source: Blouin Art Info
Learn More About “The Greek Sale” Here
