Panofsky’s distinction between iconology and iconography was an explanatory proposal for the early Western European Renaissance.
However, it seems to have gained a newfound meaning to the degree that we are facing, anew, all this ‘agonizing depiction’,
namely a twofold conceptual gradation: the fact that we have paintings that cover both their psychological charging as well as their descriptive content. This shift is due to Panagiotis Zografos (who was the painter of the works) and Yannis Makriyannis (who narrated the depicted events).

This, literally speaking, virtual representation can be characterized as such, regardless of what Makriyannis states in his autobiography, because in his intention there were creeping new and imperative necessities that were dissimilar to previous ones.

Aside from what other scholars, historians, curators and intellectuals have testified for these persons and their personalities, we cannot but underline the synchronic conjuncture during which the synergy between Makriyannis and Zografos occurs,
in order to create this visual documentation, which, in its entirety, is part of this collection.

Regardless of all that have been said for the 1821 Revolution, under the connotation that it was a component-bound as well as a constitutive event, which produced almost incommensurable consequences, the issue that has not been addressed is the cultural dimension/impact due to such an upheaval.

Perhaps the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary will be used as an excuse to justify various paraphernalia that take place
in the public sphere, in other words, events that are conducive to various cultural and political issues at stake. However, we cannot disregard that the re-opening of the National Gallery of Greece, in Athens, was chosen as the main serious celebration allowing the procurement of moral and mainly symbolic surplus.

At the same time, the cognitive processing by means of reflection – an anniversary’s property that stemmed so well ever since the age of modernity – appears to flourish only through the contemplation of paintings.

In other words, it is argued that visualization, which is nonetheless an affirmation, another form of intensification, as, that is to say,
a strong convention of culture, obviously affects and configures. Yet, the most important element of visualization is that,
through representation, the painted object or subject attains a verified, valid status – the warranty of its existence.

The Gaitanaris – Dolka Collection generously allows us -and partially in a mediated way- to present us an even better understanding of the overall processes that dealt and deal this place and its inhabitants.

And while in the Collection’s nuclear composition the protagonist role is occupied by the corpus of the collaboration between Makriyannis and Zografos, the core is comprised of paradigmatic oeuvres, in the logic of the exemplum virtutis, in which it is demonstrated with hard evidence what it means and what the consequences are to be painted, to be depicted and to be represented.

Because there are works that visualize glimpses of themes, both before and after ‘21, providing us with the compensation to observe the process of the initial publication to the gradual familiarity and then to the upcoming appropriation.

In other words, theoretical knowledge, skills and ease with representations alike were prerequisites in order to reproduce images of the outer world. The consequences of these are partially revealed in this collection. In terms of cultural studies,
this exhibition teaches us that an intense competition arises, starting out in the sphere of hegemony but ending up in a romanticized and idealized rendering of the historical past.

Therefore, somewhere-in-between appears a series of works that is trying to say something, to react in a way and potentially to object to something.

It is a painting of intentions and pursuits, and under this explanation it is clearly a political painting. While the lack of adopting conventional representational techniques could render some of the works almost irrelevant, that is precisely where the nuance lies; between the Western world, cautious of what it sees, and an entirely different one, the Eastern, conscious only of what it says.

On prestige, in other words, relies this raison d’être, and this is the reason why this exhibition takes place and why this catalogue has been compiled.

Konstantinos Basios, Art Historian and Critic,
Member of AICA Greece.