The idiom of aesthetics in the inter-war period: modernity and Greekness

The idiom of aesthetics in the inter-war period was defined by the creations of Greek artists and the dialogue that these held with international artistic trends. At the same time, being the expression of Greek society, it delineated the limits and capacities of Greek art. The idiom was then developed by the theorists of the period, such as Evangelos Papanoutsos, Ioannis Theodorakopoulos, Constantinos Tsatsos, Kristian Zervos, Zacharias Papantoniou, and artists and writers like Nikos Chatzikyriakos-Ghikas and Odysseus Elytis, who to a great extent utilized the concept of Greekness. Its measure was the Greek landscape with its transparent light underlining the clarity of outlines and defining colours with great accuracy. These elements derived from a form that contained nature together with rationality and spirit. In general terms, these aesthetic concepts dealt with Cubism in a positive manner, as the geometrical rendering of nature, while criticizing the Expressionist tendenct to 'destroy' form, giving it a sense of fluidity.