Κορίτσι

000017 Yannis Mitarakis, Girl, 1950, oil on canvas, 83.5 × 68 cm

If one compares Portrait of a Woman (000018) with Girl, it becomes apparent that although the two works are nearly contemporaneous, they reveal Mitarakis’s gradual shift toward an increasingly abstract, schematic, and anti-realist style. The painting depicts a young woman seated in the artist’s studio (as suggested by the randomly hung paintings visible behind her). The girl, with her long chestnut-red hair tied in a high bun, wears a light-toned, almost orange blouse and a grey skirt. However, across her lap lies (placed either by her or perhaps by the painter?) a piece of ultramarine blue fabric; it creates a strong contrast between the upper and lower parts of her body, effectively holding the viewer’s gaze. In the early 1950s, particularly through his Santorini landscapes and certain portraits such as Girl, Mitarakis revealed the new direction of his paintings. He was moving away from the realist tendencies of the interwar period. He adopted simpler drawing, he placed colour in large, flat areas across the canvas surface, and used brighter, more vivid hues. In doing so, he reintroduced expressionist elements—now conceived through a schematic, abstract sensibility, guided by his wish for simplification in both brushstroke and form.