What I can see

Τhe “Wood Breaker” is a 1.10-metre, full-body marble sculpture of a man in the nude, captured at the precise moment he is attempting to break a stick of wood, using his left foot as a point of resistance and applying pressure with his hands. The statue is in an open-leg position, which lends it a sense of balance. It is strongly realistic and vividly rendering the anatomical features and facial expression of the man and capturing his struggle in an exceptional way. The painter’s model was Ioannis Giannoulis, a coach of the National Gymnastics Association. Despite its characteristic classicist elements, sculptor Dimitris Filippotis (1829-1919), drew inspiration from daily life, making art that shunned the emphatic monumentality of classicist art.

What I can't see

The sculpture was originally placed in the Russian Church Square, but its naked form caused uproar among the puritan society of the period. It was subsequently vandalized, many times. There is a poignant story behind the making of the statue. The artist was believed to have finished it 25 years after he made the first plaster cast and despite the fact that by then he had gone nearly blind. The artist would open his workshop on May Day Eve every year and place candles around the sculpture as a symbolic, personal gesture of mourning for his own physical decline.

Info

• Address: V. Konstantinou & Herodou Attikou St.

Bibliography