UT PICTURA PHOTOGRAPHIA. ΣΧΟΛΙΟ ΣΕ ΜΙΑ ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΣΠΥΡΟΥ ΜΕΛΕΤΖΗ

Abstract

Olga Gratziou, Ut pictura photographia. Remarks on a photograph by Spiros Meletzis

The paper focuses on a photograph by the well-known photographer Spyros Meletzis first published in his album In the Mountains with the Partisans in 1976. It captures two artists in the act of painting a young partisan who is acting as their model in Lamia in 1944. Aris Velouchiotis, the leader of the partisan army ELAS, is standing behind the painters watching them work. An analysis of the print indicates that the photographer and his camera, though invisible to the viewer, participate in the composition, and play a distinctive role in it. In this respect this 1944 photograph relates to the established pictorial theme known in painting as «the artists' studio». Thus, Meletzis' photograph effectively projects the importance of the art of painting during the revolutionary period, while simultaneously equating the artistic importance of the medium of painting and photography.