Footnotes
Provenance:
Private collection, Athens.

A work of dazzling virtuosity, Night reflects my sorrow shows Parthenis at the height of his creative powers. All compositional elements are rendered by means of the painter's distinct formal vocabulary: limited palette, dematerialised shapes, masterful design and dilute, translucent application of paint. Austere, delicate lines, which echo the simplicity of ancient Greek vase painting, support with straight and curvilinear forms the compositional structure, creating a suggestive atmosphere of linear elegance and diffuse idealism. These elements, drawn not only from ancient sources but also from Byzantine art, European symbolism, Art Nouveau, the Jugendstil and Cubism, while preserving a distinctive Greek character, formulate an eclectic artistic language that claims the eye and provokes the viewer's emotional and spiritual participation. "Parthenis' art reflects the vision of an artist loaded with age-old memories and entranced by the dynamism and boldness of the twentieth century." 1

Especially in its vertical development of compositional elements and geometric schematisation of form, Night reflects my sorrow - probably painted in the late 1930s - demonstrates an ingenious handling of traditional subject matter in terms of modernist pictorial principles deriving from the teachings of cubism. "In Parthenis' oeuvre the great tradition of cubism undergoes a significant transformation: its purely materialistic character showcased in the works of Braque and Picasso is replaced by a symbolic-idealistic spirit not found, at least to my knowledge, in any other post-cubist work. Without rejecting the tenets of modernism, as some artists of his calibre, such as de Chirico and Derain, had done around the same time, he boldly advanced towards an organic fusion of modernist principles with the idealism inherent in symbolist subjects." 2

In such an evocative setting charged by timeless references, the winged figure tenderly embracing an archetypal Greek lyre and absorbed in a purified world of divine melody, is identified with the idea of music as a lofty symbol of universal order, harmony and peace. As noted by Z. Papantoniou, "by dematerialising form and giving shape to ideas, Parthenis creates a musical quality; in other words he lifts painting to the realm of music, the most immaterial of all arts." 3

1. 2. D. Papastamos, Painting 1930-1940, Astir Insurance publ. Athens, 1981, p. 68.
2. A. Kotidis, Modernism and Tradition [in Greek], University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1993, p. 238.
3. Z. Papantoniou, 'The Art of Parthenis' [in Greek], Patris daily, 19.1.1920.