Λιβάδι με Αγελάδες

000106 Kostas Linakis, Meadow with cows, n.d., oil on wood, 26.5 × 44 cm

The painter Kostas Linakis studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1939 to 1944 in the workshops of Umvertos Argyros and Epameinondas Thomopoulos. He specialised in landscape painting and the depiction of animals, in a style that draws mainly from Impressionism and, gradually, from Expressionism, without however reaching anti-realistic colour formulations. The work in the Municipal Gallery is a typical example of Linakis's work, thematically and stylistically. A herd of cows is grazing in a meadow. The composition is developed lengthwise, so that the dispersion of the animals in the field is clearly depicted. The large black and white and brown mammals act as clean volumes within the abstractly painted landscape consisting of a large zone of pale green, the soft grey masses of the mountain range and the cool, blue sky. In 19th century art, and particularly thanks to the Impressionist movement, landscape painting emerged as a field of artistic experimentation. In modern Greek art, these trends (with an emphasis on the study of ‟Greek light” and the ‟Greek landscape”) remained strong and popular almost until the 1960s. Linakis, who subscribes to this tradition, is one of the prominent late representatives of plein-air painting in 20th century Greece.