An important discovery, given the extreme scarcity of Spyropoulos pre-war output1, Landscape from Melun, France sheds new light in the development of this highly creative spirit who had the ability to transform the world of experience into a personal vision. Even before he was awarded the UNESCO prize at the Venice Biennale in 1960, Yiannis Spyropoulos, the first Greek to be so honoured, had gained recognition as one of the most prominent Greek artists of the 20th century. In 1938-1940, after being awarded an advanced studies scholarship by the Academy of Athens, he was working in Paris caught up in the aims and aspirations of the French avant-garde. Professor C. Christou notes: The creative fervour in this capital of the arts helped him to better realize his artistic vision. His first-hand acquaintance with the new art trends during his stay there made him more capable of freely pursuing his personal quests and all kinds of experimentation.2

Here, we can easily picture the young artist standing before his easel transcribing his immediate sense impressions directly onto the canvas. His subject is the commune of Melun in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, where the great Cezanne used to reside in the early 1880s. His aim, however, is not to render an accurate urbanscape but to capture the citys flickering atmosphere. Working in a Pissarroesque manner he is fascinated by the misty conditions that come between objects and the eye with the effect of dematerializing form, allowing him to obliterate descriptive detail and, ultimately, create a world not of tangible and three-dimensional appearances but rather of light and colour.

1. C. Christou, From the Possession of Visual Reality to a Personal and Free Formal Language [in Greek] in The Greek Painters - 20th Century, vol. 2, Melissa publ., Athens 1975, p. 414.
2. Christou, Jannis Spyropoulos (1912-) [in Greek] in The Greek Painters, p. 410.