A biography on a painting

Nikos Engonopoulos: A biography in a painting

BY: Papavlasopoulou Ekaterini, Toma Margarita – Ekaterina

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Within the framework of the course "Modern Greek Literature in the Media" we were given the opportunity to see, first of all the rest of the public, the archive of Nikos Engonopoulos up close. We went to the Athens School of Fine Arts at the invitation of the professor and head of the course, Mrs. Elisavet Arseniou, in order to research it and understand the complete archive, just before the completion of its digitization process.

Utilizing the primary documents of the archive (manuscripts, correspondence, visual works, recordings and videotaped tributes), we had to explore, with modern tools and with a more modern perspective, the past of Nikos Engonopoulos and understand it on the basis of chronological, religious, artistic and other eras. In short, we had to take a journey through time, going back to the artist's era.

As soon as the thesis was announced to us, we felt as if we had been given a mission in order to pass on to the rest of the world our knowledge, which was about who Engonopoulos really was and how we see him years later.

Thanks to the completion of the Engonopoulos archive, we had the opportunity to investigate it in its entirety, learning about it better, through aspects and dimensions that we did not know existed. After studying the archive, "exploring" his life in depth, we were asked to make an artistic creation. The range of options for its expression and publication was enormous and could only be limited by our own imagination. The directive was one: to highlight the work and/or the life of Engonopoulos.

So we sat down and checked every page and every photo from the archive, trying to think of something special that we could do for such a special and super-talented artist. Looking at Engonopoulos' paintings, we came up with the inspiration and the idea for the creation of a painting dedicated to his life. Of course, our match would have been quite difficult and time-consuming, but, with good teamwork, communication and a lot of will, we managed and worked together to achieve the desired result.

On the painting we left small elements of the aspects of Nikos Engonopoulos. As if we see moments from his life on a canvas. We wanted to show the world what it is that makes them what they really are. What is the real reason that stands out from all the other artists? What has he done all his life? Why was he a multifaceted artist?

So we had to do some research in order to first understand each piece of information correctly before transferring any design onto the board or draft. What we approached the most was Engonopoulos as an artist. What he did and what he achieved, from an artistic point of view, in his life. From the moment we wanted to devote ourselves to the painting of Engonopoulos in order to be able to create a painting with the closest characteristics of Nikos Engonopoulos' paintings, we focused on his paintings and the details they had on them, as well as the way in which they were created.

After discovering his painting, we began to look for his artistic aspects, putting them into categories. Learning. Poetry. Painting. Theatre. Creation of sets and costumes. But we wanted something more to have a complete picture of the artist. So we added his favorite island, Hydra. We added him to the center, making him the protagonist of the painting, and details that characterize him such as Hellenism. Of course, we would not have been able to receive this information if we did not have the file in our hands and the guidance of K. Arseniou.

Theoretical and historical context

Nikos Engonopoulos, one of the greatest surrealists, stood out with the bold moves of his time that made him so special as an artist. In the early 1960s, a controversy broke out about whether he was really a surrealist. The artist himself had stated that "I never became part of surrealism because that's how I was born." Saying in his own way that he always saw life as irrational from an early age.

In 1935 Andreas Embiricos published his first collection and thus Greek surrealism was born. This was followed by the two poetry collections of Nikos Engonopoulos "Don't Talk to the Driver" (1938) and "The Key Cymbals of Silence" (1939) and finally Elytis publishes "Orientations" (1939). However, Engonopoulos did not immediately find an impact as it did with Elytis. His first collection of poetry became the target of bad critics and reviewers. His first exhibition was never included in the annual National Art Exhibition of the Metaxas government. The wave of surrealism passed through the war with Elytis and Engonopoulos as artistic guides.

In 1932, Nikos Engonopoulos enrolled at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA), one of the most important educational institutions in Greece for the visual arts. There he studied under the guidance of Konstantinos Parthenis, one of the pioneers of modern Greek painting, from whom he kept the vision of depicting the timelessness of Hellenism where the codes of each artist's ideology could coexist. The theme of Greekness was always present in Engonopoulos' paintings.

At the same time, he studied in the laboratory of Fotis Kontoglou, where he met and collaborated with Yannis Tsarouchis. It was Kontoglou who taught him the secrets of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art. It was also he who taught him the transcendence of Byzantine Art, that is, the ability to overcome the conventionalities of natural reality, which was also the aim of surrealism. Thus, Engonopoulos solved the problem of surrealism through Byzantine Art. An art that is non-Western and non-rational, according to the dictates of the movement.

His education at the Athens School of Fine Arts contributed decisively to the formation of his artistic style, which combined elements of Byzantine art with surrealism, creating a unique visual and poetic idiom that characterizes his work.

In Orthodox painting, the human body, the figures, are annihilated and the figures are presented almost immaterial. In Engonopoulos' painting, however, the figures emerge fleshy and shining, acquiring a three-dimensional substance. Human figures without eyes and other facial features appear in his paintings, which are probably an inspiration from one of the poems of De Chirico, the main representative of metaphysical painting, where he said: "But suddenly, an expressionless agony struck my heart. These people had no eyes! I had noticed them: I was already worried about their looks!"

Mannequins that resemble mannequin dolls of tailors, but full of life and intensely ungraded colors, appear in his paintings, thus emphasizing the Dionysian spirit and the affirmation of life that dominates his works.

Once we were able to understand as best we could the artistic current and the era of Engonopoulos, as well as the influences he had at that time, we should have looked deeper specifically into the artist's paintings, in order to manage, as much as we can, of course, to get closer to his aesthetics and the way in which he captured whatever elements he wanted to add to his painting.

From the archive, apart from his CV and other documents that helped us a lot to understand his path as an artist as well as his life, we analyzed and read a lot of the book "LINES AND COLORS / LIGNES ET COULEURS". Which analyzed Engonopoulos' painting quite a bit, opening doors of knowledge about the details that the artist paid attention to that we could not find elsewhere.

Paintings, colors, structure analysis and details until the completion of the creation of the painting were the main elements on which we researched and dealt in order to be able to organize a plan for the creation of our own painting. Also, the comments from visitors to the exhibitions of his work were important enough to see Engonopoulos' paintings from the eyes of the public. What was it that caught their attention? The bright colors. The special and special figures. Alive, yet impersonal. But in his own special way, the artist always identified and personified the figures in his painting.

So we thought in the same way, with these special and special figures, to put the artist himself at the center of the painting. Thus making it seem as if from the journey back in time we made, we brought it back to today. Capturing him as a figure of the past.

Description of the painting: A visual biography

Our work includes a painting in which symbols, landscapes, objects and forms inspired by the visual and poetic universe of Engonopoulos coexist.

Our main choice was to place the artist himself in the center of the painting, acting as a focal point. Around him, in a way that reminds us of the theatrical scenography that he loved and served so much, we have listed scenes-memories and objects-symbols related to the various aspects of his life and work: Hydra, the Athens School of Fine Arts, his painting, Hellenism, scenography, costume design, poetry and his love for Ancient Greece.

The composition of the painting does not follow a circular or narrative structure. The elements of the work have been placed with aesthetic balance and symbolic charge in mind, not in any logical or chronological order. The distribution of the symbols is more reminiscent of an exhibition in a museum space, where the eye of the "visitor" is free to wander and stand on the object that arouses his interest, without being forced to follow any specific route. This non-linear approach honors Engonopoulos' surrealist aesthetic, which focused on sense and inner connection rather than external logic.

Of course, the first thing that stands out could not be anything other than the impersonal figure of Nikos Engonopoulos. Calm and, at the same time, austere, as the figures are often attributed to the Surrealism movement.

Hydra in the background symbolizes the artist's inner connection with nature and his place. Engonopoulos found inspiration in his visit, from 1935 to 1940, where Hydra was incorporated into his style and poetry.

The theatrical masks are related to his involvement with the theatre that began in 1938, when he designed the sets and costumes for the comedy "Menaichmoi" by Plutos, directed by Giorgos Sarantidis, at the Kotopoulis Theatre.

Paper and pen symbolize his poetic creation (the collection "Don't Talk to the Guide", 1938). His use of symbols and free thought shows his commitment to surrealism as a way of life.

Of course, the element of the Athens School of Fine Arts could not be omitted, where, studying under Konstantinos Parthenis and Fotis Kontoglou, he formed his own style that combined Byzantine art with surrealist elements.

The element of Engonopoulos' painting is depicted through a canvas, brushes and palette. What we know about Engonopoulos' painting technique concerns oils, egg tempera and intense basic colors (red, blue, yellow), through which he achieved a strong color intensity, a characteristic known from his works, without varnish, for the preservation of vitality.

Finally, the olive tree and the sea are two ancient Greek symbols of heritage and nature, which could not be missing from our painting, while they dominate the works of Engonopoulos.

The observation of the painting is nothing more than a visual walk: you start with the artist himself and slowly wander into his soul, from tradition to personal expression.

The inspiration behind the project

The archive of Nikos Engonopoulos has been the foundation of our creation. We gave special emphasis to manuscripts of his poems, notes, personal correspondence, as well as audio and visual evidence. This material gave us access not only to the work but also to the artist's psyche. For example, his statement "I never became part of surrealism because that's how I was born" led us to think of surrealism not as an artistic program but as an experiential state. This is reflected in our table: the forms do not follow a logical consequence. They are placed in a space that resembles a dream, or perhaps an absurd theatrical setting.

What we realized through the research was that Nikos Engonopoulos stands out from other artists mainly because he managed to create a completely personal universe. He manages to combine painting and poetry without subordinating one medium to the other. His work is not easily explained, nor is it based on logical sequence or realistic depiction. What he proposes is a world where antiquity, myth, Byzantine tradition and modern times coexist on equal terms.

In contrast to other creators of the "Generation of the '30s" who sought Greekness through historical continuity or the folk element, Engonopoulos chooses deconstruction, dream and surrealism. His figures are rigid, often faceless, placed in spaces without depth or temporal reference. He doesn't try to tell a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It gives the viewer the freedom to stand wherever he chooses, to interpret without being guided.

His visual vocabulary is also special: basic colors, strict compositions, absence of varnishes. His choice to use egg tempera and oil without protective layers indicates his position: the color should not be altered by anything external.

Finally, the consistency with which he served this attitude of life and art makes him unique. He did not seek to be "modern", nor to explain himself. It belongs to the artists who created on their own terms.

The creative process

Studying the article and the story of Nikos Engonopoulos, we were attracted by his particularity and distinctive style. His forms, colors, liveliness, creativity began to surprise us. After our first visit to the Athens School of Fine Arts and after our first acquaintance with the article, we began to think of ways we could do something similar, in order to honor such a multi-talented artist.

Since one of us knew about painting, we came up with the idea of creating a painting, inspired by his own paintings, in the style of Engonopoulos. In the second meeting we did a research on all his paintings, wanting to observe details and peculiarities that each of his drawings had. We collected information about how he 'built' his paintings and the materials he used.

Knowing that Engonopoulos never put anything random on his plan, our fight became a little more difficult. Everything we had to put on our board had to have a reason and a reason for it to be there. So we came up with the idea of showing the artistic life of Engonopoulos with our design. That is, looking at our painting, one had to understand the artistic achievements of Engonopoulos.

Above all, he considered himself a painter mainly and then a poet. He was a clothing and costume designer. He was involved in the theater, making sets. He loved Greece and the fact that he could be called a Greek himself. As Katerina Perpinioti-Aghazir writes in her book "Nikos Engonopoulos: His Painting World" (Benaki Museum Publications): "his Hellenocentrism projects in a purely autobiographical way the elements of yesterday and today and vice versa. He records himself and his spiritual relatives without temporal, historical and racial limitations, composing with creative arbitrariness scenes that exist in myth, history or fantasy, as if he were photographing his environment and his relatives with a surrealistic lens. He also loved Hydra. His favorite place.

We made a draft by adding each element to the board. With the draft ready and agreed by both of us, the creation of the painting began. Engonopoulos would 'pass' his design on the canvas and then 'build' the figures and the surrounding space with chromatic pre-molds, something that is very reminiscent of Byzantine art and hagiographies. So we crossed our drawing on the canvas with a pencil and then added the shadows on the drawing with color, bringing it to life.

He used oils and egg tempera. The color intensity in his works is one of their main characteristics. The clean, almost ungraded colors that he applied with careful brushstrokes to his surfaces limited by a design loop were for the standards of his time a bold act. Of course, we did not know the use, nor did we have in our possession oils or egg tempera, so we used acrylic paints that came closest to the rendering of the intense and pure color. With this material we tried to convey as best we could this detail of color that was intense in each of his paintings.

His favorite colors were red, yellow, and blue. That is, the basic colors, along with their derivatives, but without much variety of their tones. We noticed that the shadows in most of his paintings were almost never of a different color. Except for the color that the form has with the addition of the black hue. So we tried to do this detail as well. By adding mainly the basic colors and, in less quantity, their derivatives.

He never covered his paintings with varnishes or glacis. He believed that varnishes trap colors, make them yellow, alter their strength and color intensity, giving a false dimension to the painting. So of course we didn't add glacis for acrylics, even if we had that material, because we wanted to get as close as we could to the artist's particular style, and to do that as well as possible, we had to respect the artist and observe and follow the details that he gives us through his drawings.

The figures of Engonopoulos were impersonal and most of the time without facial features that several times we saw the figure's head replaced with an object. The body is tall, but dynamic. Since most of his paintings had at least one figure, one person, on top, we chose to put Engonopoulos himself, since he is the protagonist of the whole idea and the artist whom we studied and were inspired by his special works. He is wearing a white suit. This is because white usually symbolized a dead person or, more poetically, the spirit of the artist. Dynamic. Impersonal. Full of liveliness.

In his hand he holds a red flower, creating a contrast to the white, colorless suit and the endless blue of the ocean behind him. A detail added by us in order to give a flower to the artist, dedicated along with the painting to the memory and history he left behind so that we can be inspired by his reactionary style and his determination in his works.

Conclusions

Our involvement with the work of Nikos Engonopoulos was not limited to the simple recording or interpretation of data. It was a journey of understanding, a journey through symbols, techniques, historical and personal references. The creative processing of the painting gave us the opportunity to rethink what it means to approach art not only as an aesthetic object, but as a field of research, emotional activation and cultural exploration.

We discovered that this process allowed us to listen to Engonopoulos again, not through his words, but through the shapes, colors and symbolisms he chooses. Every element of his work was examined as if it were an independent exhibit in a museum without a linear narrative. This approach strengthened our critical and creative thinking and, in this way, we understood that an artistic work can reveal different readings to us every time we look at it with new questions.

The creative approach helped us to understand the work of Nikos Engonopoulos in a more meaningful and personal way. We didn't just focus on what the play shows or what it says, but we tried to see how all the elements work together to make a meaningful whole. It allowed us to focus on details that in a simple "reading" might have escaped us. It gave us the opportunity to enter the "universe" of the artist, to wonder, to observe and, ultimately, to feel closer to him.

For the development of the project, we propose that it be presented in a space where visitors can explore the symbols of the painting in an interactive way. It could also be in the form of a video or integrated into a digital application to make it accessible to more people.

Bibliography

Lavart. (ch.c.). Nikos Engonopoulos: The Greek Surrealist. Retrieved June 18, 2025, from https://www.lavart.gr/nikos-engonopoulos-o-ellinas-yperrealistis/

Metopo.gr. (2020, July 1). The Reactionary Modernism of Nikos Engonopoulos. Retrieved 18 June 2025, from https://www.metopo.gr/ O-reactionary-modernism-of-Nikos-Engonopoulos

Onassis Foundation. (2023, November 9). Nikos Engonopoulos: Orpheus of Surrealism – From the Onassis Collection to the B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation. Retrieved June 18, 2025, from https://www.onassis.org/news/nikos-engonopoulos-orpheus-of-surrealism-from-the-onassis-collection-to-the-bassilis-marina-theocharakis-foundation

Papastavrou, I. (ch.x.). Nikos Engonopoulos – Biography. users.sch.gr. Retrieved 18 June 2025, from https://users.sch.gr/ipap/Ellinikos_Politismos/logotexnia/Biografies/eggonopoulos.htm

Digital Treasure of the Greek Language. (ch.c.). Nikos Engonopoulos – Curriculum vitae. M. Triantafyllidis Foundation. Retrieved June 18, 2025, from https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/navigator/browse.html?object_id=20162