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DIMITRIOS SARIDAKIS, 1912 -77
The tokens of the work that Dimitrios
Saridakis has left us, can
undoubtedly verify the punctuality with which he
served the Modern Greek Art before and after the war .
Still sixty years later these works
endure, for they bare the truth. They
are the agonizing efforts of the
young, then, painter to confront, through his work, the reality of his time.
The few studies saved, done by Dimitrios Saridakis during the school years,
a series of portraits and a later one of landscapes are the undoubtless
witness and oath of faith of the artist to the Art of painting.
Since the first years of his studies
(1937-1940) one can identify an
especially gifted artist who meets successfully
the academic demands of the Athens School of Fine Arts.
By the completion of his studies,
Dimitrios Saridakis's tendency
towards expressional independence will
show clear in his work.
The colour -in the landscape series
-functions as the
dominant expressional and emotional elements, a
forceful means of a liberating procedure from the limitations of the
picturesque painting.
The function of colour as the means for
design (that is
designing
through colour) will lead him to
organize the paint further far from picturesque painting.
For me is also an opportunity to look
at Dimitrios Saridakis's work
as a representative work of this time.
To what extend was
Greece just after the second World
War,
prepared to welcome the new skilled painters?
In Dimmitrios Saridakis's work -both
painting and icon painting -, we become aware of the main axes of modern
Greek painting, which are on the one hand the
western education and
on the other the given orthodox
culture.
I have the feeling, that modern
Greece -that is us -cannot endure the
fact of it's -our -own existence.
Are the conditions to blame the
historical, social and political contradictions, or the cultural and historical
influences?
Still our art remains
introvert.
It seems, in our country, Art happened
and still happens apart from everything Art happens against reality,
nourished only by the obstinacy and faith of those
who devoted
themselves to it
and these are always the most
efficient.
The question is if this obstinacy is
enough. Can an
artist by himself
substitute for the lack of the social dynamic,
which lack finally defines our society as a whole .
By the end of 1957 Dimitios Saridakis
comes back.
He comes back to
his birthplace Crete, comes back to our
tradition. In those years he devoted himself to Byzantine icons painting.
During that period he reached the highest level of his work. To that, he
invested all of his talent, the artist's sensitivity, all artistic
exploration and experience he has treasured since then.
Dimitrios Saridakis has left to us an
exemplary work
on Byzantine painting,
full of vividness, a real artist's
interchange with the prototypes and the masters of Byzantine art.
George Harvalias Assistant professor
Athens School of Fine Arts
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