Mistra

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FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

The Ukrainian painter Alexis Gritchenko launched his career in 1910s Moscow, where his relationships with collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov afforded him simultaneous intimacy with French modernism and Orthodox icon painting. In 1919, following the Russian Revolution, Gritchenko fled to the Mediterranean, where he painted a series of historical cities. Positioned on a steep hill near ancient Sparta, Mistra (Mystras) was originally a Frankish Crusader and later became one of the most important cities of the Late Byzantine Empire. Gritchenko's painting is a site-appropriate fusion of cubism and Orthodox icons, traditions that he believed shared the ability to reveal the inner essence of their subjects.

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