Patrick Comerford
I was recalling last night how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki but realised that I have written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave these photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I decided to start an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over the next few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.
I came across these photographs after reading an interview with the sculptor Giorgos Georgiadis in To Vima last month, so it seems appropriate that the first of these sculptures should be his statue of Aristotle on Aristotelous Square.
The cast bronze sculpture of the philosopher Aristotle on the east side of Aristotelous Square was completed in 1990 by the Greek sculptor Giorgos Georgiadis. The square in the heart of Thessaloniki with Aristotle’s name was designed by the French architect Ernest Hebrard following the devastating Great Fire in 1917.
The statue is framed by the Electra Palace Hotel and the Olympion Cinema and close to the waterfront. It shows Aristotle seated and deep in thought, wearing a traditional cloak and sandals, and holding a papyrus scroll in his hand. The statue is remarkable for its detail, including the impressive in the folds of his clothes, his facial expression and the soles of his feet. His name is carved on the marble base.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is a pioneer of Greek philosophy, alongside Plato and Socrates. He was Plato’s student and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He was born in Stagira in Halkidiki, in the region of Macedonia. At the age of 17, he went to Athens, where he studied for 20 years at the Academy of Plato.
When Alexander the Great was born, Aristotle was invited to deliver a speech in front of his cradle. The only thing he said was: ‘I wish, when one day you become a king, you will be as indifferent and apathetic about the language of flattery, as you are indifferent and apathetic about the speech that your father made me deliver now in front of you.’ King Philip of Macedonia later entrusted Aristotle with the education of his son.
When Aristotle returned to Athens, he founded his own school, the Lyceum of Aristotle. His writings range from politics and morality to science and technology.
A popular feature of the statue of Aristotle in Thessaloniki is the unusually bright, golden left big toe, a sharp contrast with the dark bronze patina of the rest of the sculpture. The distinct colouration is the result of decades of constant touching by students, passers-by and tourists, who are told that rubbing the big toe transfers a portion of Aristotle’s intellect, wisdom and intelligence.
At 92, Giorgos Georgiadis remains Greece’s leading sculptor and when he was interviewed in To Vima last month, he was described as ‘the Last Anthropocentric Sculptor’. His career has spanned almost seven decades. His partner, the internationally renowned ceramist Maria (‘Maro’) Kerasioti, has been a constant presence in his life, throughout the most decisive shifts in his work.
He grew up in Marousi, north-east of Athens, after the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the family’s hasty and violent expulsion from Smyrna. He studied under the sculptor, painter and poet Giannis Pappas (1913-2005), whose sculptures in Thessaloniki include the marble statue of Eleftherios Venizelos on Plateia Dikastirion (Πλατεία Δικαστηρίου, Dikastirion Square or Courthouse Square).
‘The Epinikia’ is one of the most emblematic series by Georgiadis and was a milestone in his career. For several years his focus was on a seated female body and chose it for the entire ‘Epinikia’ series because it ‘symbolises motherhood and the perpetuation of humanity’.
The series came about during the years of the dictatorship. He produced it ‘during the abhorrent dictatorship the colonels imposed on Greece. Many of my colleagues, and not just sculptors, expressed themselves in a kind of silent protest through similar themes during that period.’ The title means ‘the victory celebrations that followed a victory, the triumphal chant, the paean’. In many of these works, ‘with its loose folds and pleats, the fabric signifies liberation, release, and serenity’.
Humour, sarcasm, and a pervasive irony coexist in his sculptures, alongside the tragic element. His work frequently shows a strong connection with ancient Greek literature and myth, seen in the series ‘Mythology Backwards’, with the entire series cast in bronze, his favourite material.
For almost 70 years, he has expressed himself through different materials, often working in one for a period of time before moving on to another. He has also have tackled a subject that is not human-centric with horses. He began sketching them at a stud farm in Marathon and the work soon captivated him and became a unique professional experience.
In a crowning moment for any artist, the Minister of Culture at the time, Melina Mercouri (1920-1994), decided in 1984 that he and his late friend the painter Christos Karas would represent Greece at the Venice Biennale in the spheres of painting and sculpture.
His interviewer Panos Kougias said in To Vima last month that Georgiadis ‘has a rare politeness and a generosity of spirit from a bygone era’, and described how his studio spreads out around us like a living archive of a life.
‘The great French sculptor Auguste Rodin … wrote, as a kind of wish, that it would be a great blessing for humanity if nations were governed and their fates decided by artists’ Georgiadis said. ‘Then, lasting peace and justice among people would prevail on the planet, without wars and weapons of mass destruction.’
Next: Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, near the White Tower
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