Sawt Falasteen - Prominent Greek artist Fassianos laid to rest

The artist, who died at the age of 86, was buried in the cemetery of Papagou, the northern Athens district where he lived out his final years.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Culture Minister Lina Mendoni were among a few hundred people who attended the ceremony.

"He is with us. He will always be there," the artist's wife Mariza told AFP, standing next to her children Viktoria and Nikola.

"Alekos Fassianos was the painter of Greece, of Greek colour, of Greek authenticity," Mendoni told AFP at the funeral.

In a tribute to the artist Sunday, Mitsotakis said Fassianos had "generously given colour to (Greek) daily life" and that his work was "always balanced between realism and abstraction."

- Known around the world -

Born in Athens in 1935, Fassianos was best known for his distinctive brightly coloured cherubic figures, inspired by ancient Greek heroes and angels, and mostly done in blue and red.

"I like red and blue, but not in abstract form. Colour should always have meaning!" he wrote in 1964.

The grandson of a parish priest and son of a composer, Fassianos initially studied violin for 12 years.

He then enrolled at the Athens School of Fine Arts of the National Technical University of Athens under famed Greek master Yiannis Moralis.

In 1960 he received a scholarship from the French government to study lithography at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Described by some admirers as a modern-day Matisse and by others as the Greek Picasso, his works, which included paintings, lithographs, ceramics and tapestries, have been shown around the world.

He also created costumes for the Greek national theatre and the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.

And Mendoni, in her tribute Sunday, noted that he had sold his works to fund archaeological excavation in the Cycladic island of Kea, his personal summer retreat.

While Fassianos resisted comparison with Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, he admired both artists, but insisted he had drawn on many different influences.

"Greekness has always been his inspiration, from mythology to contemporary Greece," his wife Mariza told AFP in an interview last month.

- A 'painter-philosopher' -

Oscar-winning French-Greek director Costa Gavras, a lifelong friend of the artist, remembered Fassianos was an "exemplary" artist and "painter philosopher", in comments to AFP.

The artist would "always be with us with his unique body of work", he added.

"He will always be present...in the hearts of all Greeks who loved him, and whom he loved back.

"To those who knew and loved him, he will always be remembered as a warm and luminous friend," Gavras said, remembering him as a gracious host.

He recalled how Fassianos enjoyed serving his guests sea urchins that he had collected from the beach and prepared himself "with the skill of a Greek fisherman".

But the artist was also a resolute critic of idiocy and vulgarity, Gavras added.

Fassianos was awarded France's Legion of Honour and was also an honorary member of the Russian academy of arts.

A museum dedicated to his work is to open in Athens this autumn.

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST