'THIS WORLD' DEPICTION OF A WOMAN

‘This World’ Oil on board 60x70 cm This painting was inspired by a hard to authenticate and still disputed Leonardo Da Vinci painting.  I was fascinated by the mastery of depicting the face so beautifully, with hardly any detail. I thought it would be simple to copy.  I was wrong. Da Vinci, or whoever was imitating him, had created something that was truly magnificent with chalks and inks on vellum. Subtle and understated, it showed a young woman (The Young Fiancée) on a flat background, with the predominant colour being gold.  The original is a small and humble painting at first glance, but the wonder of it really emerged for me as I tried to copy some of the magic. After many days of reworking, I realised that this was taking its own direction. I painted the landscape in the background to balance the figure and create a sense of space. The original had a flat golden background.  The flower which in our modern times is just a flower, would have carried a complex meaning and associations, had it been painted in 1490’s. That was my own addition and served to extend the meaning of the painting.   I worked on the face again and again, mostly using very thin glazes and white for the highlights. The trick was to be as simple as the original. Not to overwork it. When using someone else’s work as inspiration, we are selective as to the aspects that we will take forward into another ‘new’ work.  My narrative was somewhat limited by my desire to almost replicate something, rather than invent or create something totally new. The woman in this picture is older than in the original, and has more options. She is outdoors, signalling her freedom - albeit within the strict social conventions of her day - implied by the mountains, which still envelop her; her inner qualities and conflicts are masked, but implied by my addition of the lily.  Both a symbol of innocence and purity and sensuality, its subtlety will not affect the modern viewer in the way it would have in a previous era. This is one of many paintings of women that I have completed over the years. There is often a common thread running through these works.  They have a reverence about them. The figures, as it is the case here, are reminiscent of religious iconography. There is a tension in me, as I am sure there is in many of us, between physicality and spirituality. Why do my depictions of female subjects have this reverential almost religious quality? I attribute this to my traditional Orthodox upbringing, where the publicly displayed female form was always shown as modest and restrained.  I am aware of course that this is a very limited and limiting view. I know that there is no way that real women fit that narrow definition. In my restrained paintings and depictions of women, under the surface of this outward appearance of  self and imposed social constraints and propriety, all things exist, all things are possible, but need not be said.  As Odysseas Elitis says in his epic work ‘The Axion Esti’: “This world this world is the same world, […] by night with the syrinx, by day with the high harp […] of remorse and cloudiness’’.  It always struck me how we live in a complex world, where the sacred and the profane can co-exist in such closely flowing parallel streams. For some, women hold this duality as described in the poem, despite the immense changes in social norms and women's rights. Sadly the latter is a phenomenon that is very much determined by geography  and yet to fully bear equal outcomes for millions of women. So here she is,  the woman in my painting; a woman of 'This World'. The time, place and location are inextricably linked, as are our own personal reference points. What does she mean for you? George Sfougaras 2015