The hidden fascination of painting

The exhibition of five of Kashalos' paintings at "Zygos" gallery, honoured in their presentation alongside the work of Theophilos, will better acquaint the wide public of Greek artists, critics and art lovers with this Cypriot folk painter.?  My respect for Kashalos's work and the fascination it evokes in all of us, irrespective of the paths each one of us has taken in our own personal expression, is indebted to the day and age we live in.

For today, our sensors are much refined and can pick up the vibrations of many and varied transmitters; varied only in the surface of things, because in essence their message must be the same, otherwise there can be no explanation of how we can simultaneously tune in to Ingres, to Delacroix, to Cezanne, to Rousseau, to Mondrian and to Kandinsky.

In his own way, with much grace and ease, Kashalos had given us that which is real and pure, that which we all try to find through delving, celebral reasoning and through deliverance from complexes which restrain free flight.

And I move on to Kashalos's fairy tale; Kashalos who is now 77 years old and who started painting four years ago.

Michael Kashalos is a villager from the lively village of Asha, a village which has also nurtured representatives of other artistic fields.?  Until the age of thirty he was a shoemaker.?  While in elementary school, despite the old methods of teaching, he distinguished himself.?  It was during this distant time, [that an encounter with] monks-painters, that art whipped his interest.?  What finally made him change his trade was connected with the illegal excavations carried out at that time and the demand for illegal antiquities, especially on the part of foreign visitors.?  Cypriot soil being rich in such antiquities provided ample opportunity for these activities which, being illegal, were difficult and dangerous.?  The persistent demand however, drove skilled craftsmen to make very successful fakes.?  Hadjiyiannis and Tomboulas from the village of Lysi (both of whom died recently) and Kashalos belong to this group of craftsmen.?  All this has been stopped now by the Department of Archaeology in its attempt at systematic organisation.?  But throughout this period Kashalos carved stone heads of every period; Archaic, Hellenistic, Roman.?  He had himself discovered ways of working with the most primitive tools and materials.?  Thus he earned his living and supported his family for forty-five years.?  He struggled to make a living, got married, made a home for his family, had children and grandchildren.?  His fame spread, though of course the tourists and collectors didn't know what they were buying.

When a photograph was sent to the Museum of Antiquities from the USA, querying the genuineness of an object purchased in Cyprus, the Director of the Museum, who was of course aware of the situation, called upon Kashalos to explain.?  His reply was simple, honest and ingenious.?  "Isn't it better that we have sold a fake for export to America? What would you have said if that was a photograph of a genuine antiquity?"?  The logic was irrefutable.

Today, when the Department of Antiquities has clarified the situation through proper organisation, Kashalos sells his work not as genuine antiquities but as copies and fakes, without any attempt to mislead.?  I find nothing disturbing in honest imitation.?  I know no one who has not done this to a bigger or lesser extent; and let us not forget that there were times when entire schools based their status on this kind of perfect submission to the archaic model.

But the times are changing and Kashalos is well informed of that.?  When I first met him, in 1952, at the village coffee-shop, I explained, following his persistence, as simply as I could, today's line of thought and the general demand for innovation and personal expression.?  Kashalos is a bread-winner in this business.?  Painting and sculpture are his way of dealing with life.

At his first show, which was organised in Nicosia in 1960, his work was divided into three sections: a) nine fakes or copies, b) four sculptures of his own creation, and c) some forty paintings.?  His technical knowledge and experience in the carving of stone and marble were of great help in his first original sculpture work.?  But for me, the most incredible thing was his new venture, that is his painting, which he began just four years ago and which he approached on his own, based exclusively on the direct observation of his village.?  It deals with scenes and customs of his land and with symbolic figures and heroes.?  In this new direction, without the experience of sculpture, he has to face each technical difficulty alone.?  Space and colour are new issues, which he solves with innate primitiveness, clear formulation, void of doubts and hesitations, rendering his subject matter with absolute sincerity, in accordance with nature, as he sees and feels it.

In the linear structuring of his painting, he is guided by the subject matter and where the two-dimensional character of the canvas restricts him, he gives instinctive but true solutions, emphasising those elements which he considers to be of greater importance.?  The result is that his art, just like the art of a child, is absolutely genuine and spontaneous, free of acrobatics and wilful distortions and mannerisms.

Kashalos, in his impeccable suit, which consists of the traditional "vraka" (baggy trousers), black waistcoat and the folded scarf which replaced the old fez in 1912 as a national repercussion in Cyprus, is not a man of restless and strong personality.?  On the contrary, he is quite gentle, sweet, calm and logical.?  He works from his humble house in the village, sometimes he pays us a visit in the city, comes to our shows and organises his own in order to sell his work and thus make a living.?  For Cyprus, Kashalos is a distinguished figure enhancing our artistic life.?  I believe that his work will be accepted in Greece with much respect and enthusiasm.

A.DIAMANTIS
Zygos Magazine Athens - April 1963

Source: Michael Chr. Kashalos, the hidden fascination of painting, A. Diamantis, Copyright © 2000, Larnaka Municipality, Pierides Foundation.

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