The teacher’s son, who learned from soft nails to love reading, and therefore a lifelong lover of literature, Manolis Charos, if he were not such a gifted painter, would have found a way out in writing. However, in a strange way, he always manages to combine both. Earlier he dealt with Aesop and his fables. In one of his recent exhibitions at the Benaki Museum, he drew inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Ezra Pound, the Italian Calvino, Plato, Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, turning readings into images. Now came the creative spark from Dionysios Solomos and his prose work Dialogue, written in 1824, in which he passionately defends the vernacular. Two hundred years later, the artist Iptani falls under the influence of this text and creates paintings, engravings and books for artists in an exhibition in the Gennadio Library, which was opened some time ago.

Fortunately, this visual tribute was not made last year in the midst of presentations, studies, publications and exhibitions about 1821 and the revolution. With all this old and new knowledge that we have collectively gained over the past year, we can appreciate the Kharos paintings presented in a different way in the library curated by Maria Georgopoulos and also by Dr. Simos Zeniou, Deputy Director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center. to study Greek culture. The artist’s and engraver’s creations are framed by Solomon’s manuscripts, rare publications, printed matter, books, magazine clippings, letters and translations that either belong to Gennady or come from the National Library, the Academy of Athens and the Solomon Museum.

The purpose of the exhibition is to see again our national poet and his time, his revolutionary demands, the desire of the people for freedom in all manifestations of life. The tribute was hosted by Vivi Gerolimatou and Andreas Georgiadis and will run until June 30th. As part of the exhibition, on Monday, June 20, 2023, at 19:00 in the assembly hall of the American School of Cotsen, a lecture by Simos Zenios will be held on the topic “Poetry and its audience: Solomon’s introduction to the era of revolutions.” Hall.