ART

Esther Anatolitis (Deputy Chair, Contemporary Arts Precincts, and Honorary Associate Professor at RMIT School of Art) + Helen Marcou AM (Bakehouse Studios) join Kyriakos Gold to discuss the role of Art in Greek culture, historically and today. 

Does the art of the privileged and the art of the oppressed differ? Is art a  tool for social change? What is the role of art in a multicultural society and how did art influence the Greek Revolution of 1821?

Think of the images that come to mind when we talk about the Greek war of independence, the warriors, the heroes, the feats of bravery, battleships engulfed in flames. It is telling of the influence and significance of the Revolution that most of this imagery was not created by Greeks but by philhellene artists in Europe, most notably Eugène Delacroix, who used allegories to record history in art.

When his most iconic painting, The Massacre at Chios - depicting the cruelty of the Ottoman rule and the horrors that resulted from them razing the island - was completed in 1824, the French public opinion demanded an intervention from their government to help the revolutionaries and prevent the killings of the innocent, unarmed population.

Overall, the Greek Cause became a source of inspiration for Romanticism, the prevailing artistic movement of the time in Europe, partly due to the influence of Ancient Greek civilization on shaping European culture. The armed struggle, the victories and losses of the revolutionaries and their sacrifices were depicted in numerous paintings.

In fact, if we have any clue now about what the leading figures of the revolution look like, we owe it to a Bavarian soldier and amateur artist, Karl Krazeisen, who drew sketches of Kolokotronis,  Makrygiannis, Karaiskakis, Miaoulis and all the personalities who form the pantheon of the revolution. Little did Krazeisen know, when he was deployed to fight alongside the Greeks, as part of the armed forces of the philhellene Bavarian king Ludwig that his sketches would be displayed in every classroom in the new Greek state, as well as in the Museum of National History.

As familiar as Krazeisen’s images may be, he is still an obscure figure among the philhellene artist/ warriors who fought for the Cause. Unlike Lord Byron, who was an established poet when he came to fight with the revolutionary forces, dying in Mesolonghi in 1824. A leading figure of European Romanticism, Byron became the embodiment of the ideals that believed in the re-birth of classical Greece through the fire of warfare. His poetry, along with that of his dear friend, Percy Shelley, praised the spirit of the revolutionaries. In France, Victor Hugo published a collection of poems titled “Les Orientales” in 1828, praising the love for freedom exhibited by the Greeks.

Back in Greece, in the former Venetian-turned-British territories of the Ionian Islands, Dionysios Solomos took on the task of narrating the heroic revolutionary deeds in verse. His epic poem The Free Besieged, inspired by the third siege of Messolonghi (1825– 1826), a crucial conflict in the Revolution; in another poem, he pays tribute to Byron’s sacrifice; but it was the ‘Hymn to Liberty’, completed in May 1823 which raised him to the status of Greece’s National Poet—comprised of 158 stanzas, the poem, which is centred around the glory of the Struggle for Independence, circulated Europe, raising awareness for the Cause. Its first two verses are now the National Anthem of Greece.

As for the fighters themselves, they have left an enduring artistic legacy through song and music. Their bravery, struggles and everyday life became the topic of numerous demotic songs of unknown authorship. Surviving by word of mouth, they are part of the unique musical tradition of Greece that still survives in folk festivals and inspires scholars and researchers. Sounding nothing like the music created in other parts of Europe - or the rest of the Ottoman Empire, for that matter - the demotic songs are the product of a very specific time and place. 

While the time signatures or the dances may differ from region to region, all demotic music is played by three core instruments; a type of drum, keeping rhythm; a type of lute, for harmony; and a melodic instrument, be it the lyre or a bagpipe - later replaced by the violins and clarinets brought by foreign soldiers. The music echoes the sounds of the mountains, the plains, and the sea; and the words narrate the story of a people who took their fate in their own hands.