Παραθαλάσσιο σπίτι

005854 Nikos Yialouris, Seaside house, n.d., oil on cardboard, 38.5 × 30 cm

Looking at these early works by Nikos Yialouris, one cannot help but reflect on the boldness of a self-taught artist—raised in the difficult conditions of the German Occupation (1941-1944) in provincial Chios—who, from a very young age, dared to engage with the art of painting using the language of Modernism. Who were this young artist’s interlocutors? From where did he draw inspiration, guidance, and influences to give these early, youthful attempts such a distinctly modernist expression? In this particular work, a coastal landscape is depicted. In the foreground, to the right, stands the trunk of a bare tree—a motif that would recur throughout his oeuvre until the end of his life. The sea, in the lower right, plays a game of dominance with the land: it enters coves, is repelled by small headlands, embraces and is embraced by the land. The ground, articulated in small, clear planes—polygonal surfaces of pure colour—rises organically to culminate in the strict, rectangular mass of a house. The drawing is rudimentary, simple, rough, yet wise in its restraint. The same can be said for the colour. The brushwork, rich and textured, is applied with nervous gestures, carefully covering the boundaries between the black outlines. This is a style influenced by Expressionism and Cézanne, by Van Gogh and the Fauves, and adopted by a young, self-taught Greek artist.