Το φεγγάρι

000473 Nikos Yialouris, The Moon, 1997, mixed media on cardboard, 50.5 × 72 cm

Folk art had been a powerful and enduring source of inspiration for Yialouris from early on. This particular work, dated toward the end of his life, reveals his ongoing love for folk motifs—so deeply embedded in his personal style that they became inseparable from it. Depicted in anthropomorphic form, as a man and a woman respectively, are the sun and the moon—a pair of celestial bodies, each ruling the sky in its own time: day and night. The clean cut outlines, the flat, vivid colours, the decorative richness, and the rhythm of the composition derive from folk art. Yet Yialouris has breathed his own characteristics into this traditional motif. In this unique way, he identifies his art with his homeland, Chios.