Τοπίο στη Σαντορίνη

000013 Yannis Mitarakis, Landscape from Santorini, n.d., oil on canvas, 50.5 × 58.5 cm

The painting depicts a hillside interrupted by dirt paths leading to a few white houses, while scattered low trees stand out with their dark green foliage. Behind the hill, the rugged, mountainous landscape continues. Strikingly, the artist—clearly observing the scene from a higher vantage point—fills the entire canvas with the hills, completely omitting the sky. In this way, his landscape imposes the arid, barren land as the sole focal point. The work’s style—with rough drawing, strong abstract planes, and the harsh, expressionistic brushwork, finally with a restrained palette of warm browns and ochres alongside a few cool whites and greens—evokes the art of André Derain and Demetrios Galanis. It recalls earlier paintings by Mitarakis, like Festival at Pyrgi and Well in Megara, and is likely dated to the first years after the painter’s return to Greece. In his solo exhibition at the Galerie “Paul” Décorateur (Alexandria, February 1933), Mitarakis presented a painting titled Santorini (cat. no. 8), which confirms that he had visited the island early on and had been captivated by its landscape. He would return to Santorini in the 1950s to create an exceptional series of paintings.