About a month ago, Nikos Xidakis of ‘Kathimerini’ , called me and requested that I give in to the challenge of a Holy Mother. He asked me to paint her for her name-day, 15th of August. I hurriedly replied that I was deeply caught up in the creation of artworks for my exhibition at the Benaki Museum in December, and that I had neither the time nor the mental focus for anything else. As if painting requires merely time and mental focus!
Those days I had been talking to ‘Samos-lad’, the well-learned Vaggelis Zournatzis, and he sent me digital files of various Holy Mothers from his valued archives – each of them thoroughly annotated. The Praying Holy Mothers, I thought at the outset, or possibly one of the archetypal Guiding Virgins, but the Kardiotissa, that Holy Lady of the Heart, secretly beckoned me, my gaze continually turning to her: to the loveliness of the mother, and the passionate turning of the child’s head. I took her in my hands one night, in despair over my other artworks and my misfortunes—a deep night; I turned her to the other side, humbled her glowing garment, and eradicated her son from her arms. She is left a praying shadow, empty and alone. May I be forgiven by the great Aggelos Kotandos, precentor of Handakas and arch historiographer of the entire empire, that ablest of artists, who painted her with great adequacy both dogmatically and technically, but it seemed to me that what I’d changed her into suited our condition more. Introvertedly heartrending , with a void in her arms, anticipating in a desperate plea on behalf of us all, and sending us what is most vital, her tenderness. The next day I caressed her cheek to make the mark go away and filled her dark embrace and her cloak with bright flames. And the holy mother of candles shone, illuminated. A flaming woman in black. I — a well-intentioned scoundrel—named her ‘Keriotissa’: Our Holy Lady of Candles, and I pray to her grace in repentance.
C.B.
Kastella, the difficult summer of 2013.
