- 19
Nicholas Gysis
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 GBP
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Description
- Nicholas Gysis
- art and its spirits
- signed with initials lower right
- oil on canvas
- 43 by 35.5cm., 17 by 14in.
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Margarita Gysis, the artist's daughter
Catalogue Note
As noted by Dr Nelly Missirli, `This oil sketch forms part of Gysis' preliminary studies for his large work Art and its Spirits, which he started painting in 1875, intending to enter for submission to the Paris Salon. By 1879, however, when he eventually exhibited the work in Munich, it was still unfinished. Today this large work is lost, but it is possible to deduce the content from a rather completed preliminary study in the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens (fig. 1).
The preliminary study in the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum depicts an allegorical composition: on the right-hand side, a female figure representing Art is holding a violin, while angels, representing the artistic Spirits, are trying to climb upwards, although only the genuine talents reach the top, as Gysis himself explains.
In the present work the figures are barely visible, though Icarus with his tied up wings stands out at the bottom of the composition, representing those whose talent does not carry them to the top. What shows through in the bottom right-hand corner are probably marbles that must have been depicted in the original painting, as the ideological setting of the scene was ancient Greece.
In these preliminary studies, Gysis proves his confidence in executing a composition that diverges from the Academy's detailed rendering and gives leeway to his desire to paint freely and express ideas in allegorical works, although, as Gysis mentions, he often confined himself to realism.'
FIG. 1, Nicholas Gysis, Art and its Spirits, 1876, oil on canvas, The National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens--167D08100_COMP
The preliminary study in the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum depicts an allegorical composition: on the right-hand side, a female figure representing Art is holding a violin, while angels, representing the artistic Spirits, are trying to climb upwards, although only the genuine talents reach the top, as Gysis himself explains.
In the present work the figures are barely visible, though Icarus with his tied up wings stands out at the bottom of the composition, representing those whose talent does not carry them to the top. What shows through in the bottom right-hand corner are probably marbles that must have been depicted in the original painting, as the ideological setting of the scene was ancient Greece.
In these preliminary studies, Gysis proves his confidence in executing a composition that diverges from the Academy's detailed rendering and gives leeway to his desire to paint freely and express ideas in allegorical works, although, as Gysis mentions, he often confined himself to realism.'
FIG. 1, Nicholas Gysis, Art and its Spirits, 1876, oil on canvas, The National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens--167D08100_COMP