É. GIANNOULIS
CHALEPAS
His
life
Giannoulis
Chalepas is for Modern Greeksculpture its great tragic myth. The talented
young artist with the tremendous recognition, the tragic fate, the madness
and the solitariness, the mother who destroyed his works, forbade him
to sculpt and who is seen as tantamount to Medea; last, the discovery
of the now old Giannoulis, his comeback, with the extraordinary works
of the final years, and the acclaim. Dithyrambic critiques of his Sleeping
Girl and emotion over his tragic fate. This is Chalepas for Greeks as
a whole, a figure from a novel with attributes of a saint, who continues
to move specialists, artists as well as the man in the street. And yet
it is little known that the greater part of Chalepas oeuvre was created
on Tinos and in Athens after his discharge from the Corfu Mental Hospital,
that this oeuvre is of special importance for Modern Greek sculptures
and that it is linked closely with the island of Tinos. The twenty-one
sculptures by Chalepas in the permanent exhibition of the Cultural Foundation
of Tinow, in the Chora of Tinos, comprise a unique ensemble which presents
precisely this side of his work. Giannoulis Chapepas was born in 1851 at Pygros
on Tinos, a place with a particular tradition in art and especially
sculpture in the 19th century; Philippotos, Chalepas Vitalis, Sochoi and others, to mention only
the best-known names, hailed from Pygros, Ysteria, the area of Panormos
on Tinos. Gianbnoulis was the eldest of the six children of Ioannis
Chalepas, architect and marble-sculpture , who created one of the most
important marble-carving workshops in the second half of the
nineteenth century, active in Aegean , Smyrna and the Asia Minor
littoral, on Mount Athos, in Bucharest, Syros, Athens, Piraeus and elsewhere
(Goulaki-Voutyra 1989). This was the environment in which Giannoulis
grew up and got to know his art. He studied sculpting at the school
of Fine Arts in Athens, under the tutelage of Leonidas Drisis (1869-1872),
and in 1873, with a scholarship from the holy foundation of the Evangelistria
in Tinos, he continued his studies in the Academy of Munich, under Max
Windmann. In 1874, he was awarded first prize by the Academy for his
work Fairy Tale of Sleeping Beauty. His scholarship was cut in
1876, obliging him to return to Athens, where he began to work in the
paternal workshop. In 1877, the year he sculpted the Sleeping Girl,
the first symptoms appeared of the illness which led to his committal
to the Corfu Mental Hospital in 1888. After the death of his father
(1901), his mother brought him to Tinos, where he lived in the family
home from 1902 until 1930. His mother died in 1916 and dated works by
Chapels survive from 1918. In 1925 an exhibition of his works was held
in the Academy of Athens, which institution awarded him its highest
prize for artistic excellence in 1927. In 1928 a second exhibition was
organized in the Greek capital, in the Art Asylum. In 1930, his
niece Irene V. Chalepas brought him to Athens, were he lived for the
last creative years of his life in warm bosom of her family, having
earned general acclaim. He died in September 1938.
His
Oeuvre
One hundred and fifteen sculptures
by Chapepas survive today, while testimonies exist for a further thirty,
which destroyed or are of whereabouts unknown. A large number of his
drawings survives too, on single sheets or in sketchbooks. The V. Chalepas
family possesses a considerable collection of sculptures and drawings
and drawings, while there are other important holdings in the National
Gallery in Athens, in the exhibition of the Cultural Foundation of Tinos
- which are presented here -, in the Giannoulis Chapelas Museum at Pygros
and in many private collections. Chalepas’ oeuvre can be divided into three
periods: The first period (1870 – 1878) covers his youthful years until
the onset of his illness; the second period (1902 – 1930) the years
when hi was living and working on Tinos, after his discharge from the
Corfu Mental Hospital; the third period (1930-1938) the years when he
was living and creating in Athens. The work of his first period belongs in the conservative
spirit of nineteenth-century Classicism and is influenced by academicism,
with emphasis on realistic rendering. His attention to composition is
accompanied by a flawless technique, a remarkable skill in executing
details and in working marble. To this first period belongs the most
famous sculpture in Modern Greek art, his wonderful Sleeping Girl,
which is in the First Cemetery of Athens. The Satyr with Eros
and the Head of a Satyr, in the National Gallery, as well as
Medea Slaying Her Children, a work he himself destroyed,
are the best-known works by the young Chalepas. Virtually no work from the second and the third
period of his oeuvre was completed in marble. Maquettes in clay
have survived, while most works were transferred to plaster. The subjects
he studied correspond to those of the first period: mythological, Satyr
and Eros, Medea; recumbent female figure; allegories; religious
themes; portraits; genre scenes. The artist’s illness decisively affected his work,
so that in the second period he appears with a different conception,
turning his back on academicism, casting off every excess-anecdotal
element and seeking out the essence of the subject. The difference between
the second and the third period is less striking and is more a continuation
of the artist’s course to maturity, in which his principal concern is
to work on synthesis, creations in the round, values of plasticity,
a pulsating matter, with economy in the treatment of the subject, aiming
at immediacy and expressiveness in the final result. His goal is the
absolute sculpture, without voids or holes interrupting the unity: ‘The
unsupported stature is supported upon the general matter of the clay,
because it is destroyed by the anatomical osteology’, he wrote in a
note in his hand. That is why he avoided ‘armature’ in his works. He
wanted to apply in his creations Michelangelo’s principle for the ideal
sculpture, which ‘if it tumbles down from above on a ramp, will not
break anything, and even if it does break something of its outermost
members, what remains is a true sculpture’ (Doukas 1878, 120). Thus
his constant research and inquiry focused on the synthesis, the structure,
the relationship and the balance of volumes; his habit of correcting
works of his own or by other artists is due to this obsession. In addition to the sculptures, numerous drawings
by Chalepas have survived, all from the second and third periods of
his creativity. Known from the Tinos period are the drawings he made
in the account of his father’s workshop, after his return from Corfu,
ten of which have survived. Eight belong to the V. Chalepas family,
one to the Costopoulos Collection and one to the National Gallery (Papastamos
1981; Goulaki-Voutyra 1986; eadem 1986a). The drawings from the second
period are more troubled, superimposed, often featuring symbols of playing
cards, confessional. They allow us to penetrate the world of Chalepas’
creative experience, to see his ideas taking shape and form, as they
leap from his brain. The drawings of the third period, clearer and more
easily legible, help us to see which subjects were not completed in
three dimensions, his persistence in returning to subjects of the first
period, to correct, to wrestle with the composition, reveal to us his
astonishing visual memory, his observations, his humour – sometimes
sarcasm -, his difficulties.
Chalepas
in Modern Greek sculpture
Chalepas
occupies a unique place in Modern Greek sculpture. With the oeuvre
of his youth he belongs to the nineteenth century, with that of the
second and third periods of creation he belongs to the twentieth, as
a lone voice without precursor and without continuer. His family background, with a tradition in marble-carving,
links him more directly to the progress of Modern Greek sculpture in
the nineteenth century, which developed in the newly-founded capital
of the state and was associated with its reconstruction. The first large
public buildings in Athens, the royal palace (pres. House of Parliament),
the university, the academy, the library, the Zappeion, the metropolis
(Greek Orthodox cathedral), as well as the host of Neo-classical urban
residences, provided employment, attracting to the capital the Tinian
marble-carvers, who worked on doorframes, consoles, architectural sculptures
and all the carved decoration on the buildings of this period. From
their ranks emerged the first sculptors who created works in public
places, in the First Cemetery, as well as outside Athens, throughout
Greece. Many of these talented marble-craftsmen were taught sculpting
by the Classicist Christian Siegel, the first professor in the ‘School
of Arts’, and passed rapidly from the folk tradition with highly baroque
traits to the new domain of Classicism. Classicism was imposed on nineteenth-century sculpture
as the ideology of the fledgeling Greek State, since it confirmed the
direct connection with the ‘ancient heritage’. After Siegel, the teachers
in the ‘School of Arts’, Leonidas Drosis and Georgios Vroutos, as well
as the sculptors of the Kossos, Malakates and Phytalis families, Georgios
Vitalis, Vitsaris, remained oriented towards Italian and German Classicism,
the academicism of Munich, whereas Philippotis introduced realism and
a certain change in the thematic repertoire, with works representing
activities from daily life (Harvester, Fisher-boy, Woodcutter etc.).
At this point the youthful work of Chalepas, particularly the Sleeping
Girl, takes academicism to its utmost limits, revealing concurrently
the special quality of its creator, his insistence on the issue of composition.
Forty years of Chalepas’ absence from artistic
production (1878-1918) elapsed, in which Greek sculptors gradually and
increasingly oriented towards Paris, to Rodin, to Symbolism, as well
as to Bourdelle or Maillol, without liberating themselves from the anthropomorphic
direction of classical tradition. Lazaros Sochos, Bonanos, Thomopoulos,
K. Dimitriadis, Stergiou, Doukas, hover between the teachings of classical
tradition and the style of Rodin, with works that are often inconsistent
and problematical. In the decade of 1920-1930, Chalepas, isolated
on Tinos and out of touch with Greek reality in the capital, struggled
with his own proposal, his fixation on composition, which is why he
chose to work on the same subjects as of old – for him the subject was
simply a pretext for investigating form – and boldly attempted solid
volumes, contrasts, expressionisms, daring combinations of volumes-shapes.
And in Athens too, until his death, Chalepas remained the great loner
of his time, without precedent and without subsequent, but with inquiries
which through the authenticity of research confront contemporary sculptural
issues, such as the study of the female nude and its metaphysical dimension
or the transformation of themes of the past by different handling of
the form and treatment of the surface, meeting avant-garde inquiries
of the early twentieth century, such as Cubism (schematization, geometric
motifs), Expressionism (distortions, expressively dynamic linear elements)
or even Surrealism (dreamy subjects, audacious changes of scale, etc.).
His contemporaries discover him, recognize him,
but do not follow him. After 1935 Tombros was to proceed to an abstractionist
sculpture, while Bourdelle, who married the Greek girl Cleopatra Sevastou,
was to support and to influence many Greeks, Apartis, Antonis Sochos
(the only one who was influenced by Chapelas in terms of primitivism),
Kastriotis and others. Zongolopoulos, Loukopoulos, Kapralos, Lameras
and even Pappas, who tried essentially to unshackle Greek sculpture
from its Classical past, were always directly dependent on European
currents, such as Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstractionism
and so on. Today, more than ever, Chalepas’ work seems to
move and to inspire artists, researchers, scholars, who evidently now
have the maturity to approach it. ‘If the Sleeping Girl is an
elegy for the young woman who has passed away’, notes Chronis Botsoglou,
‘the Resting Girl is a question about her existence’. Chalepas’
work, admirable before his illness, amazing after it, symbolizes and
epitomizes the adventure of modern Greek art. As G. Psychopaidis has
said, ‘Chalepas reveals vividly, with his tragic fate, the momentous
passage of the artistic consciousness from the nineteenth to the twentieth
century. In his person, Greek art of his time experiences with painful
self-awareness the tardy, traumatic transition from European academicism
to the sage, Doric austerity of a Greek Modernism’. Although Chalepas
was not in direct contact with foreign parts, he seems to have followed
in some way (from printed matter, information, colleagues’ comments),
consciously or unconsciously – it is not easy to say – contemporary
concerns. Today we can distinguish increasingly Chalepas’ contact with
contemporary production, through the pages of the Cahiers d’Art or
other volumes he had access to in the house in Daphnomili Street (Matthiopoulos
2000; Idem in Bolis – Pavlopoulos 2004, 32-43), and recognize his peculiar
visual memory. Chalepas’ oeuvre, his sculptures and his
drawings, reveal the creator’s liberation from the structures of academicism
and the conquest of a personal expression that was won with many difficulties
torturously, through a tragic fate. Almost inevitably this emotive change leads to
the identification of Chalepas’ fate with that of Modern Greek art in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the stable relationship with
Classical art, the academicism and the longing of the intellectuals
of the day to be linked with modernity, which in the case of Chalepas
emerges furthermore through constant values, the localism, the authenticity
fo the tragic fate, the expressiveness in the place of skill.
II.
THE WORKS BY CHALEPAS IN THE CULTURAL FOUNDATION OF TINOS
The
works by Chalepas that are exhibited in the Cultural Foundation of Tinos
and are now presented to the public as an integral ensemble, represent
mainly the second period of the artist’s creativity. To the first period
belongs the relief Affection, which he himself gifted to the
Evangelistrias Foundation in 1920. The sculptures of the second period
(1918-1930) are dated and identified thanks to the following references:
1.
Catalogue of six works,
prepared by N. Moraitis and published in the newspaper Astir Tinou,
10.3.1918 (Doukas 1978, 21).
2.
Catalogue of thirteen
works of the years 1920-1923, prepared by Alexandros Alavanos and published
by Th. Vellianitis in the newspaper Ethnos, 19.5.1924 (Doukas
1978, 125).
3.
Catalogue of fifteen
works of 1924, prepared by N. Lytras (referring to the previous thirteen
plus another two).
4.
Catalogue of six works,
prepared by Ph. Politis and published in the newspaper Politeia,
14.4.1925 (Kalligas 1972, 73-74).
5.
Catalogue fo fifty-six
works from the period on Tinos, prepared by Doukas (Doukas 1978, 123-126
and 212-214). Preserved in PIIET Archive is the letter from
the sculptor Thomas Thomopoulos to the Directorate of the School of
Arts and dated 19 May 1922 (see document 1, p. 30), which was written
after his visit to Pyrgos on Tions and his meeting with Chalepas. It
is obvious that Thomopoulos was impressed by the solitary sculptor’s
new creations and he notes characteristically:’…
found the artist working with dedication under the most adverse
circumstances, in a badly-lit basement, without easels or any such facility.
I examined attentively his new works and I consider these notable from
all viewpoints, independent of technical imperfections. I believe unreservedly
that the craftsman’s demon has led him to a new creation of pure archaic
art, totally opposite to his known classical style. I consider it moreover
a sacred duty towards a great creator, as is Giannoulis Chalepas, that
our School recommend to the responsible authorities the rescuing of
these primary works as a bright flash for the renaissance of modern
Greek Sculpture’. A few days later, on 28 March 1922, the Director of
the School of Fine Arts in Athens, Georgios Iakovidis, forwarded this
document from Thomopoulos to the ‘Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs
and Public Education’, with the request that a special technician be
sent to Tinos, in order to cast Chalepas’ works in plaster and to bring
them to Athens for exhibition, the intention being to support the artist
(see document 2, p. 32). Unfortunately, however, the precious catalogue
of the principal works, which Thomopoulos mentions that he encloses
in his letter (document 1) and which Iakovidis forwarded to the Ministry
of Education, has been lost (see also Doukas 1978, 131). Nonetheless, very important with regard to this
issue are the testimonies brought to light in the document of the Brotherhood
of Tinians, of 1926 (protocol no. 248/5.6.1926), which is also kept
in the PIIET Archive and is published for the first time here (see document
3, p. 34). This document refers to twelve plaster models by Chalepas,
which are in some ‘archive’ space of the Polytechneion in Athens, and
which Chalepas donated to the Brotherhood of Tinians. These are the
models that had been made in 1922 by technicians of the Archaeological
Museum, at the behest of the sculptor Thomopoulos, as proposed in his
letter of May 1922 (document 1), and were presented in the exhibition
of works by Chalepas, held in the Academy of Athens in 1925. In this
document the Brotherhood of Tinians takes care of the packing of these
in 14 crates, their safekeeping and storage in an apartment in Athens,
and their dispatch tot eh Evangelistria Foundation in Tinos. Thus, this
document constitutes the most important source for Chalepas’ works in
the exhibition in the Academy, as well as for their dating. They are
the following: 1. Fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. 2. Alexander
the Great. 3. Head of Athena. 4. Bust of Irene Kouvara.
5. Bust (K. M.). 6. Sleeping Ariadne. 7. Eros Vanquishing
Giant. [7a. Same]. 8. Herodias. 9. Dante and Beatrice.
10. Milk-seller. 11. Medea. The Brotherhood of Tinians
gifted these works to the PIIET, for the creations of a Museum of Tinian
Artists. Numbers 4 and 5 were not found among the works in the museum
and their fate is unknown. Number 9 is perhaps identified with the work
Couple with Seated Man. Number 10- most probably renders one
side of the double-faced work Aphrodite and Peasant Girl. The
same document also mentions three sculpture by Lazaros Sochos, two releifs
of the pedestal of Kolokotronis and the bust of Zarifis (Goulaki-Voutyra
1990, 50-53). In 1936
Theresia Politou presented to the Museuim of Tinian Artists the maquette
of the relief of the monument for I.N. Politis in the First Cemetery
of Athens (work of 1931), whose whereabouts are also now unknown. Likewise,
it is not known what happened to one of the two reliefs donated in 1955
by Vasileios and Irene Chalepas, which represented the artist’s self-portrait
and his niece Irene Chalepa (I owe this information to the sculptress
Kaerina Chalepa-Katsatou). The second relief of this donation is the
Annunciation, of 1936. We do not know which works K. Kaparias
donated to the Evangelistria Foundation, since their titles are not
given in the thank-you letter of 16.2.1971. They should be sought among
the remaining works in the permanent exhibition. Last, in a document
dated 13.3.1968, protocol no. 419/746, which is published here for the
first time (see document 4, p. 36), it is mentioned that Nina Mariolopoulou
donated three small bronze sculptures numbers 17, 18, and 19 in the
catalogue. The Panhellenic Holy Foundation of the Evangelistria in Tinos
recently donated to the Giannoulis Chalepas Museum in Pyrgos, ten plaster
casts of works in its collection (Sofianos 2004, 11). A. G.-V. |
