THOMOPOULOS, Epaminondas (1878-1974)
House in the Pindes
Oil on canvas
Signed in Greek on the lower right: A. Thomopoulos
Inscription on the back of the canvas: « Prof. Epaminondas Themopoulos Academicien Kelenus 3 Athenes (Greece) »
Source : Benezit, vol. 8, p. 220
71x91.5cm - 28 x 36’


Bon in Greece in 1878, Epaminondas Thomopoulos left his native country
early. He went to Italy, where he studied drawing and painting along with
a renowned Neapolitan painter: Morelli Domenico. Despite the talent of his
master, he was strongly marked by another artist, Giovanni Segantini, the
eulogist of Italo-Swiss Mountains and the enlightened observer of rural scenes,
who instilled into him the art of vibrating colors. Epaminondas owed the keys
of his success to the latter: firstly, his taste for mountain pastures noticeable
in his depictions of Pindes Mountains to which he devoted a book published
in 1930 (« A travers les montagnes et les vallées de Grèce »); secondly, his
unusual “tiny waves”, relics from Impressionism. Two characteristic features
that are recognizable in our painting.

A traditional house lost in Greek mountains before which a donkey and sheep
are grazing quietly. The human figure, absent from this mute landscape, is
suggested by the harnessed donkey seeming to be ready to take the road.
Beyond a genre scene painting, Thomopoulos depicts an instant of life,
probably a nap, while rays of sunlight are heating and dismantling the structure
of the organic matter becoming vibrating “waves”.

Epaminondas was appreciated by his contemporaries. Indeed, he was awarded
a honourable mention at the Exposition Universelle in 1900 and was appointed
the director of the Athenes’ Academy. Many of his works are exhibited at the
National Gallery of Patras.

71x91,5cm - 28x36’’