Lot 49: Theofrastos Triantafyllidis (Greek, 1881-1955) The dinner guests 24.5 x 33.5 cm.

The dinner guests
signed in Greek (lower left)
oil on canvas
24.5 x 33.5 cm.

Painted c. 1930-35.

LITERATURE:
Antonis Kottidis, Modernism and Tradition in the Greek Art of the Interwar Period, University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1993, p. 256, no 187 (illustrated).

Seeking to grasp a mystic realm of intimacy behind the enigma of existence, this outstanding pre-war expressionist transforms a seemingly genre scene into a vision of subjective truth and poetic metaphor. The featureless faces, the evocative silence and the obvious lack of communication between the figures, which seem submerged into a self-contained world, create an aura of mystery, characteristic of the metaphysical climate of European symbolism. As noted by Professor A. Kotidis in his monograph on the artist, "The dinner guests is a painting of enigmatic content. It is true that the narrative elements in Triantafyllidis's work are extremely sparse -distancing it from genre, but here this differentiation is especially pronounced. The composition is set in what looks like an outdoor space defined by two vertical forms like tree trunks. The artist 'freezes' the scene arranging his subjects frontally as in a vintage family photograph. He organizes his composition in terms of a triangle, its corners being the three female figures in pure red and its base formed by the table and the two women in black. The figures confront the viewer with barely visible facial traits -in fact with featureless, empty faces. This, combined with spatial ambiguity, charges the work with a unique, almost metaphysical import."υ1

υ1. A. Kotidis, Triantafyllidis [in Greek], University Studio Press, Thessaloniki, 2002, pp. 241-245.