In the aftermath of the national tragedy of the Greco-turkish War, a group of intellectuals, artists and scholars who were first hailed by Giorgos Theotokas as the "Generation of the '30s" emerge in the cultural scene in Greece.
The term Generation of the '30s is rather controversial. Some critics and writers themselves, such as Seferis, were skeptical of the term, as these intellectuals never formed a homogeneous, self-declared group. Nevertheless, they shared common traits: they were well traveled and had experienced living in Europe, most of them were bourgeois, they wanted to experiment with the modernist movements that dominated European arts and letters and finally, they all shared the desire to break with tradition. They introduced innovations such as the modern urban novel, the interior monologue, poetry in free verse and surrealism in painting. Using their arts as as means of expression, they tried to redefine the concept of Greekness, exploring major themes stirred by the collapse of the irredentism of Megali idea, such as time and place, tradition, memory and history.
Born in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, the intellectuals who are considered the Generation of the '30s, produced their most mature and innovative work between 1930 and 1940 - resulting to two Nobel Prizes for Literature for Greece. They were "the defiant, the unsatisfied, the adventurers of the soul and spirit", argues Giorgos Theotokas, its main theorist who, in 1929, declares in his essay Free Spirit "faith in the future, in the speed of the modern world, in the vigor of a fit and healthy youth, in individuality and free will, in creative ambition and in difficult art.”
The following years are pivotal for poetry, literature and the visual arts. In 1935, the magazine Ta Nea Grammata, the main vehicle and exponent of the new trends, was published for the first time. In the same year, two of the most famous works of modern poetry were published, Mythistorima by Giorgos Seferis and Ypsikaminos by Andreas Empeirikos, introducing surrealism. In November 1935, Odysseas Elytis, one of the most powerful drivers of new poetry, will appear for the first time in the pages of Nea Grammata.
The artists of the Generation of the '30s, such as Tsarouchis, Chatzikyriakos-Gkikas, Parthenis, Papaloukas and others are drawn to the modern movements that dominate European art. Their art engages modernity with tradition morphing into a unique visual language of austerity, abstraction and denial of realism. These artists embrace the spirituality and abstraction of Byzantine icons, the joy of folk art and the geometry of its forms as well as the harmonious balance of classical art.
In this exhibition you will find records related to the literary and artistic figures who contributed to the birth of a new Greek consciousness in culture, giving birth to a modern idiom for Greek arts & letters and leaving an important legacy for future generations.
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The exhibition contains items from the following institutions:
