Page 42 - Studio International - April 1965

Sklavos Greek sculptor

by Georges Boudaille

Sklavos beside There are some works of art that are difficult to grasp, gives us the exceptional pleasure of taking part in the
Lumiere Diaplanetique
1963-64 understand and interpret. There are others that imme- original movements of artistic creation.
Porphyry diately affect both eyes and soul by means of some I was struck originally by Sklavos' first displays—from
natural quality. The sculpture of Sklavos belongs to the 1959 on—at the Young Sculptors' Exhibition, which
second category. was then held in the gardens of the Musée Rodin. He
The ease with which communication is immediately had been in Paris for hardly two years, and was fresh
established between the work of art and the spectator from the School of Fine Arts in Athens, on a govern-
cannot be retained as a critical criterion. Nevertheless, ment scholarship. The sculptures I am speaking of were
it shows the gift that a particular artist possesses—his then carried out in metal, but a feeling for rhythm was
ability to endow his creation with an appropriate form. already evident ; it was also clear that this was only the
It goes to prove that this form is one that agrees with beginning of his development. The power of inter-
the sensibility of the contemporary world. connexion between the several elements of the work
Perhaps one should attribute the sense of plastic had already great precision. One was also struck by a
beauty to Sklavos' origins, and say that he has inherited certain dynamism of forms and a powerful movement
it from his distant ancestors of the sixth century. With- which endowed space with a liveliness that seemed to
out going so far as to examine art from a purely ethno- extend beyond the dimensions proper to the work itself.
graphical viewpoint, I have been able to confirm among Sklavos made his affirmation with the manner of the
most of the Greek artists of the School of Paris and in true sculptor, despite any minor imperfections of detail
particular in the sculptors, a clear tendency to emphasize that might have been present. For the marks of the
above all else harmony of form and material quality. true sculptor are—before anything else—the organisa-
But in the case of Sklavos, this desire for plastic perfec- tion and animation of space.
tion is not allowed to rule over the attention to expres- But metal was the lesser evil for Sklavos, although it
sion that is dominant in other trend-makers of con- was a basic substance that proved easily workable and
temporary sculpture. the low cost of which appealed to the young sculptor
Sklavos does not only allow us to realise the harmony who was as yet unknown to the Paris art-world. But
of proportions: he makes us experience the rich quality Sklavos is a Greek, and therefore the heir to a noble
of stone; shows us the organisation of his composi- tradition : he dreamed of using a more noble material.
tions, and the very process of the development of form. He could not use the marble dear to the ancients, but
It is perhaps because each of his works seems to open was allowed the discovery of the various beauties of
up and reveal to us the secrets of its creation, that it also granite and the more joyous shimmering of porphyry.