Proceedings of the 6th Arts & Humanities Virtual Conference, Prague

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE DEFEAT. THE GREEK-TURKISH WAR OF 1897 THROUGH THE HAND OF ITS ARTISTS: DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS OF THE FRONT

KONSTANTINA NTAKOLIA

Abstract:

The defeat of Greeks in the short, in terms of duration, war that broke out in 1897 against the Turks, constituted the motive for researching the way that the Greek and foreign artists chose to illustrate this unpleasant outcome of war, since so far, a concertation of the images of that war has not been conducted. Through the study of c.150 drawings, oil paintings and folk images a first attempt is realized to approach and interpret the way that the ‘infelicitous’ war of 1897 was presented and illustrated, mainly in the national and international Press of that time, where the documentary painting meets Ernst Gombrich’s principle of the “eyewitness”. Although the 1897 war lasted approximately only a month the artistic production was immense. Hundreds of correspondents managed to reach the front to execute drawings of the battles that took place in the Thessalian and Epirus front. These fast drawings were sent back home, and they were published in the newspapers of the time (Acropolis, Empros, Pinakothiki, Script, Gli Avvenimenti d’ Oriente, L’ Illustratión, Le Monde Illustré, La Tribuna Illustrata della Domenica, Le Petit Journal Supplément Ιllustré, Le Petit Parisien, The Daily Graphic, The Illustrated London News etc.) creating a “point of view” of that war. To this end, a second wave of Philhellenism was arisen, motivating the Philhellenes around the world to join once again the Greeks in the battle, e.g., the Italians Garibaldini fought and died heroically in Thessaly. Last, special reference is made to the works of Demetrios Galanis (1879-1966) and Georgios Roilos (1867-1928). The aforementioned painters were present at the front and had the opportunity to draw the incidents. Although both artists are well known (Galanis lived and work in Paris with the avant-garde while Roilos was a prestigious professor in School of Fine Arts-Athens), this facet of their work remains undiscovered. Therefore, in this study, Galanis’ drawings of the front are presented for the first time, while a new approach to Roilos’ paintings is attempted. Based on the analysis and study of the images of the war, we present our conclusions on the depiction of the 1897 Greek-Turkish war: Realism and Naturalism are alternate, while the soldiers are portrayed mainly as ordinary people fighting, suffering and dying for their homeland. Perhaps the foreigners, influenced by these pictures, felt sympathy for the Greek troops and reached for help regardless the continuous recessions. It was a matter of representation of the defeat.

Keywords: 1897 Greek-Turkish war, 19th century Press, correspondents, documentary painting, Philhellenes, Philhellenism, Garibaldini, Galanis, Roilos

DOI: 10.20472/AHC.2020.006.003

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