Lot 32: Boats at shore 50 x 61 cm.

Boats at shore signed in Greek (lower left) oil on flannel laid on panel 50 x 61 cm.

50 x 61 cm

A frank admission of admiration for atmosphere and lyrical feeling, this evocative picture of two fishing boats floating peacefully in shallow waters is surrendered to the truth of vision and the artist's subjective interpretation of nature. Although the seaside landscape is easily identified as such, the artist's loose handling of paint, abbreviated curvilinear forms and lack of descriptive detail transform it into a highly poetic image, generating an atmosphere more like a distant, vague recollection than an actual sense experience. This poetic mood is introduced by the water reflections in the foreground that lead the viewer's eye to the centre of the composition¹, creating a suspension between real time and memory. "The landscape, no longer just a pictorial space, becomes an expressive-symbolic field recording the artist's emotional and intellectual response to the stimuli offered by the natural environment. Light, colour and line become the main vehicles of the artist's feelings. An ambivalent sense of presence/absence suffuses these silent images in a poetic 'timescape' where human presence is suggested rather than actually depicted."² Note how the fisherman on the right boat is so integrated in the poetic atmosphere that he dissolves into his natural surroundings, partaking in the ethereal vagueness and poetic uncertainty of space. In 1927, D. Kokkinos noted that the works by Economou were true works of poetry, but so masterfully rendered that their significance as paintings prevailed. ¹. For a discussion of the boat motif in Economou's work, see A. Kouria, Michalis Economou, Fifty Years from his Death [in Greek], Zygos magazine, no. 56, November-December 1982, p. 15. ². A. Kouria, Michalis Economou [in Greek], Adam editions, Athens 2001, pp. 106-116.