Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
THEOPHILOS HADZIMIHAÏL: THE ROUSSEAU OF GREECE?
The “naïve” painter
Theophilos Hadzimihaïl
(1873-1934) was born and died in Mytilíni Town,
and both his eccentricities and talents were remarkable from an early age. After wandering
across the country from Pílio to Athens and the Peloponnese, Theophilos became one of
belle
époque
Greece's prize eccentrics, dressing up as Alexander the Great or various revolutionary war
heroes, complete with pom-pommed shoes and pleated skirt. Theophilos was ill and living as a
recluse in severely reduced circumstances back on Lésvos when he was introduced to Thériade
in 1919; the latter, virtually alone among critics of the time, recognized his peculiar genius and
ensured that Theophilos was supported both morally and materially for the rest of his life.
With their childlike perspective, vivid colour scheme and idealized mythical and rural
subjects, Theophilos's works are unmistakeable. Relatively few of his works survive today,
because he executed commissions for a pittance on ephemeral surfaces such as
kafenío
counters, horsecarts, or the walls of long-vanished houses. Facile comparisons are often made
between Theophilos and Henri Rousseau, the roughly contemporaneous French “primitive”
painter. Unlike “Le Douanier”, however, Theophilos followed no other profession, eking out a
precarious living from his art alone. And while Rousseau revelled in exoticism, Theophilos's
work was principally and profoundly rooted in Greek mythology, history and daily life.
Theophilos Museum
Tues-Sun 10am-4pm • €2 •
T
22510 41644
he
Theophilos Museum
honours the painter (see box above), born here in 1873, with
four rooms of wonderful, little-known compositions commissioned by his patron
Thériade (see below) during the years immediately preceding Theophilos's death. A
wealth of detail is evident in elegiac scenes of fishing, reaping, olive-picking and baking
from the pastoral Lésvos which Theophilos obviously knew best. The
Sheikh-ul-Islam
with his hubble-bubble (Room 2) seems drawn from life, as does a highly secular
Madonna merely titled
Mother with Child
(also Room 2). But in the museum's scenes
of classical landscapes and episodes from wars historical and contemporary Theophilos
seems on shakier ground.
Thériade Museum
Tues-Sun: April-Sept 9am-2pm & 5-8pm; Oct-March 9am-5pm • €2 •
T
22510 23372
Next door to the Theophilos Museum, the imposing
Thériade Museum
is the legacy of
another native son, Stratis Eleftheriades (1897-1983). Leaving the island aged 18 for
Paris, he Gallicized his name to Thériade and eventually became a renowned avant-garde
art publisher, enlisting some of the leading artists of the twentieth century in his ventures.
The displays comprise two floors of lithographs, engravings, ink drawings, wood-block
prints and watercolours by the likes of Miró, Chagall, Picasso, Giacometti, Matisse, Le
Corbusier, Léger, Rouault and Villon, either annotated by the painters themselves or
commissioned as illustrations for the works of prominent poets and authors: an
astonishing collection for a relatively remote Aegean island, deserving leisurely perusal.
South of Variá
Heading
south
beyond the airport and Krátigos village, the paved road loops around
the peninsula to
Haramídha
, 14km from town and the closest decent (pebble)
beach
;
the eastern bay has a few
tavernas
.
Áyios Ermoyénis
, 3km west and directly accessible
from Mytilíni via Loutrá village, is more scenic and sandy. The patron saint's chapel
perches on the cliff separating two small, sandy coves from a larger, less usable easterly
bay accessed by a separate track.
ACCOMMODATION AND EATING
AROUND MYTILÍNI
Loriet/Laureate
Variá, 4km south of Mytilíni
T
22510
43111,
mansion with modern wings, gardens, fine restaurant and
25m saltwater pool. Rooms vary from blandly modern,
W
loriet-hotel.com.
A
nineteenth-century
