The Art of Christos Bokoros

 Christos Bokoros is one of my favorite living Greek artists.  When I see his work I am reminded that the mundane can be sacred and that the "everyday" has mysterious depth.  When you look at these paintings you can almost smell the bread and feel the wood... please take the time to explore his remarkable website which you can visit through the link at the bottom of the page.

Christos Bokoros' Website 

A Literary trip to Greece

We are not sure if we will be able to visit Greece this year.  This reminds me that most people will not be able to visit Greece this year.   

If you are part of the “most” who never have, never will (though you should), or just cannot go this year, perhaps you might consider taking a literary trip to Greece.  The following recommendations will take you to Greece without a boat or an airplane…

1.  Mother Thessaloniki

https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Thessaloniki/dp/9600414254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494520626&sr=8-1&keywords=mother+thessaloniki

2.  Aegean Notebooks

https://www.amazon.com/Aegean-Notebooks-Reflections-Archipelago-Romiosyni/dp/9607120310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494520685&sr=1-1&keywords=aegean+notebooks

3.  Patmos: A Place of Healing for the Soul

https://www.amazon.com/Place-Healing-Soul-Patmos/dp/0802140602/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494520732&sr=1-1&keywords=Patmos+a+place+of+healing

4.  The Axion Esti

https://www.amazon.com/Axion-Esti-Odysseus-Elytis-2007-12-20/dp/B01MZ56QSB/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494520711&sr=1-14

5.  Tales from a Greek Island

https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Greek-Island-Alexandros-Papadiamantis/dp/0801848466/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494520841&sr=1-1&keywords=tales+from+a+greek+island

N.G. Pentzikis: Come inside the Church

The Church asks you: "Are you a sinner.''  You reply: "Yes, I am." — "Then, come inside the Church and find the road through which you may obtain even a hint of God's grace. And this is comfort for whatever may happen to you in your life."

St. George by Peris Ieremiadis (Updated)

Η ημέρα της Λαμπρής, ∆ιονυσιος Σολωμος (Greek & English)

The last cool star of dawn was
foretelling the brightest sunshine;
no cloud, no drift of mist was travelling
across any part of the sky.
Coming from there, the breeze
blew so sweetly across the face,
so gently, that it seemed
to whisper to the depths of the heart:
‘Life is sweet and death is darkness.’

‘Christ is Risen!’ Young and old, maidens,
everyone, little and great, prepare!
Inside the laurel-covered churches,
gather in the light of joy!
Open your arms and with them offer peace,
that the icons of the saints may see.
Embrace and kiss other sweetly, lip on lip,
let friend and foe proclaim, ‘Christ is Risen!’

Laurels are placed on every tomb,
beautiful babes are held in mothers’ arms,
the choristers sing sweetly
as they come before the icons.
Bright is the silver, bright is the gold,
under the light of the Easter candles.
Each face alights before the holy candles,
that Christians bear in hand.

Καθαρότατον ήλιο επρομηνούσε
της αυγής το δροσάτο ύστερο αστέρι,
σύγνεφο, καταχνιά, δεν απερνούσε
τ’ ουρανού σε κανένα από τα μέρη,
και από εκεί κινημένο αργοφυσούσε
τόσο γλυκό στο πρόσωπο τ’ αέρι,
που λες και λέει μες της καρδιάς τα φύλλα
«γλυκειά η ζωή κι ο θάνατος μαυρίλα».

Χριστός ανέστη! Νέοι, γέροι και κόραις
όλοι, μικροί, μεγάλοι ετοιμασθήτε,
μέσα στις εκκλησιές τες δαφνοφόραις
με το φως της χαράς συμμαζωχθήτε,
ανοίξατε αγκαλιές ειρηνοφόραις
ομπροστά στους Αγίους, και φιληθείτε,
φιληθείτε γλυκά χείλη με χείλη,
πέστε Χριστός ανέστη, εχθροί και φίλοι.

Δάφναις εις κάθε πλάκα έχουν οι τάφοι,
και βρέφη ωραία στην αγκαλιά οι μαννάδες,
γλυκόφωνα, κοιτώντας ταις ζωγραφι-
σμέναις εικόνες, ψάλλουνε οι ψαλτάδες,
λάμπει το ασήμι, λάμπει το χρυσάφι
από το φως που χύνουνε οι λαμπάδες,
κάθε πρόσωπο λάμπει απ’ τ’ αγιοκέρι,
οπού κρατούνε οι Χριστιανοί στο χέρι.

Χρυσόστομος Σταμούλης, Ο ύμνος της αγάπης: A Hymn of Love

Yannis Tsarouchis

Yannis Tsarouchis (Γιάννης Τσαρούχης) 13 January 1910 – 20 July 1989

Born in Piraeus, he studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1929–1935). He was also a student of Photios Kontoglou, who introduced him to Byzantine iconography, while he also studied popular architecture and dressing customs. Together with Dimitris Pikionis, Kontoglou and Angeliki Hatzimichali he led the movement for the introduction of Greek tradition in painting.

The Art of Odysseas Annitsakis

Γεννήθηκε στην Αθήνα το 1965. Σπούδασε σχέδιο, χαρακτική, γλυπτική και υδατογραφία στο Ανοικτό Εργαστήριο της πόλης Oldenburg στη Γερμανία από το 1992 έως το 1997.

Zissimos Lorenzatos: What Remains…

All these matters, great and small, which torment us or occupy us and trouble our minds, day and night, with the small—the infinitesimally small—fraction of truth which the world can contain: what do they amount to for man at the critical moment? And what do we leave behind us? When you put everything together within yourself and sum it up—prophecy, mysteries, knowledge, faith (yes, even faith)—what finally remains, in this world, apart from Love?  What is left, even of those countless worlds that circle endlessly ‘in limitless space’ in the universe, as the Zakynthian poet Kalvos says:

The storm clouds have fled on the wind,

never and nowhere to be found.

Ο Ράλλης Κοψίδης

Wayfarers by Tasos Leivaditis

WE ARE THOSE who have been on their way for

centuries—we never had a place of our own—where are we

going? Where are we coming from? On occasion we stay

somewhere for a while, but fate quickly remembers us again

and we leave.

And only on occasion, at the time when dusk falls and

the few violets shudder amongst the hedges, we are

overwhelmed by a strange awe, a feeling as though we are

returning to the place from which we have been forever

banished.

         

 Or perhaps the twilight is our only home…

N.G. Pentzikis: Mother Thessaloniki

If, looking at Thessaloniki, one is able to rebut the poetry of the the Waste Land, in which all cities are reduced to non-existence, it is because here in the ruins, in what all things new will eventually become, one senses that everything exists, not for what it was but for something other than that, which never entered our minds when we were building.  This unlooked for other makes it possible for you to live in Thessaloniki, so that however dismal your starting point, you are always when you set out optimistic about the Resurrection. 

- N.G. Pentzikis

Alexandros Papadiamantis in Seven Images

by Nikos Engonopoulos

ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΣΑΜΟΪΛΗΣ

by Rallis Kopsidis 

Spyros Papaloukas: Visions of Holy Space

SONG OF OLD TIMES by Nikos Gatsos

Λουκάς Γεραλής

For George Seferis

Times change, years pass

the river of the world is muddy

but I go out on the balcony of a dream

to see you bent over your clay

embroider ships and swallows.

The sea is bitter, our land small

the water in the clouds dear

the cypress wrapped in bareness

the grass burns to ashes in silence

and the hunt of the sun is endless.

And you came and carved a fountain

for the old shipwrecked man of the sea

who vanished but a memory of him

remains

a gleaming shell on Amorgos

a salty pebble on Santorini.

From the dew that shakes on a fern

I have taken the drop of a pomegranate

so I can in this notebook

spell out the longings of a heart

with the first star of a fable.

But now that Holy Tuesday arrives

and Easter will come slowly

I want you to go to Mani and to Crete

with your company there perpetually

the wolf the eagle and the asp.

And when you see the shooting star

from another time shine on your face

secretly with delicate twinkle, stand up

bring back again a spring

that wells up in your own rock

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Times change, years pass

the river of the world clouds over

but I go out on the balcony of a dream

to see you bent over your clay

embroider ships and swallows

source: http://nauplion.net/NIKOSGATSOS.html