Adamantios Diamantis – The World of Cyprus

On the ground floor of the Leventis Gallery in Nicosia a large room is dedicated to one work. Spread-out on four walls, seemingly from floor to ceiling, is a celebration to a seminal piece of art appropriately titled The World of Cyprus. At its heart is a panoramic scene spread across 11 connected panels, 17.5 metres long and 1.75 metres high. It shows a broad collection of people of all ages seemingly gathering together in the open, some sitting, some standing, dressed in typical clothes of the day representing their status and role in society – priests and imams, farmers and goat herds, old men and  young children, mothers and yiayias, fathers and bapous.

It draws me every time I go to Nicosia, like a siren call. Why?

I was first introduced to the work in a traditional Cypriot home in a traditional Cypriot village in the Troodos mountains. As in many homes in Cyprus, a piece of the scene depicted in the panel hangs on a wall or sits on a shelf or a mantelpiece. Although I had never seen it before I recognised it immediately. I felt a connection; I sensed a familiarity; I raised a smile and felt a strong sense of nostalgia.

Given the simple scene, the title of the work may seem grandiose, presumptuous even. But I get it – in that simple scene I see my grandmother and grandfather; I see the village rural life that defined Cyprus before independence and partition; I see the religious services and festivals that are the glue of Cypriot society and that I attended from a very young age; I smell the village and taste the air where my grandparents lived and my parents grew up. And I bathe in the colours  – black, off-white and an earthy brown – that symbolise the austere life and connection with the land of traditional rural Cyprus of the times.

Diamantis was a flaneur – sauntering across the island observing society between 1967 and 1972. He depicted life as at that time, and a ‘spirit’  that could have described Cyprus for centuries right up to the overnight forceful partition of the island in 1974. In that moment Cypriot Life changed immeasurably and permanently, yet part of Diamantis’ World of Cyprus lives in Cyprus today…

… and in my Spirit of Cyprus.