Composition 1958

Nikos Nikolaou created this undated composition using an unknown medium. The image, with its many dashes of green, brown, and beige paint, immediately brings to mind the rural landscapes of Greece and the pictorial conventions of impressionism. As an artist, Nikolaou inhabited a complicated position. The art schools and galleries of his native Greece were, and to some extent still are, deeply shaped by western European ideas about artistic technique, aesthetics, and value. While it is certainly possible to see the influence of French Impressionism in Nikolaou’s work, he was also deeply invested in exploring what a distinctly Greek modernism might look like. If we understand this, we can see this painting less as a straightforward impressionist exercise and more as an attempt to explore and express the unique qualities of the Greek landscape through the visual language of modernism. To understand this work more fully, historians of art and culture consult a wide array of sources, from the artist’s personal writings to local newspapers and political documents.