Γυναίκες Αναβάτου-Σημερινή Γυναίκα

000027 Bertel Christiensen, Women of Anavatos - Modern Woman, 1998, oil on canvas, 71 × 52 cm

Bertel Christensen was a prominent Norwegian photographer, but he occasionally worked as a painter. He loved the island of Chios and in 1998 he produced four paintings inspired by the sacrifice of the women of Anavatos, who chose to commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of the Ottomans during the Chios massacre (1822). One painting depicts the happy woman before the catastrophe (00028), the second the despair of the massacres (00026), the third the sacrifice-suicide (00029) and the fourth (00027) the modern woman of the village, who carries within the tragic event of 1822. In particular, this painting depicts a portrait of a woman in a three-quarter pose. Her harsh, abstract and slightly expressionistic features (with traces of Byzantine and folk art) reveal a face tortured and broken. Her stern posture and expression, however, reveal inner strength, faith and power in order to continue living. The pyramidal mass of Anavatos rises in the background under the black sky, heightening the dramatic nature of the composition and linking the picture to the historical events of March 1822.