Funeral Composition 1958

Yiannis Moralis’s ‘Funeral Composition’ is made with blocky brushstrokes and ochre hues that give it a kind of ancient, melancholic feel. I can imagine Moralis building up this surface, wrestling with those figures, trying to find the right balance between the solidity and the strange kind of flattening that comes when you turn the world into paint. It looks like he was thinking about the history of painting as he made it. The way he’s laid down the paint makes the figures feel both present and remote, like apparitions from another time. That strong vertical mark connecting the torso is such a powerful gesture, almost defiant in its simplicity. It's a painterly decision that really changes how you see the whole figure, right? Moralis feels connected to a lineage of painters exploring the human form but is bringing his own sensibility to it. Artists are always in conversation with each other, borrowing, responding, pushing back. Painting becomes this ongoing experiment in how we see and feel. It's not about answers, it's about keeping the questions alive.