As it is known, during the Second World War Greece has fought on the side of theallies and the end of the war found the country on the winners’side. However, thestruggle for authority right after 1945 was merciless and extremely difficult, as well asdangerous for the course of the country to the future. The political powers were dividedbetween the legal authorities that were represented by the king and formed the exiledgovernment on the one hand and the part of the resistance teams and the rebels of the leftthat had a soviet friendly direction on the other. Thus, the start of a civil war was just a matter of time. It finally started in 1947 andlasted for more than two years. The consequences were disastrous for the country’seconomy and decisive for the future course of Greece. The national army prevailed withthe help of, mostly, the English. Royal parliamentary democracy was established with aclear political turn to the west, as a completion and adaptation of the Agreement of theGreat Powers at Yalta. Art had a ‘similar’route. Dipolar, contradictory: conservative choices on the oneside, and a will for pioneering inspiration and perspective on the other side. The‘dominate’trend was first evident in sculpture and mainly in the public monuments. Theirconstruction aimed mostly at the public propaganda and at the promotion of the sovereignideology. On the one side we have the public sculptures composed of faces of contemporaryheroes or leading figures of the civic war and the national resistance. On the other side wehave monumental statues mainly that appeal to a ‘public’outside of the country’s bordersand mostly of the north borders, where there are countries with a communistic regime, likeBulgaria, Serbia and Albania. Their subject is derived from the heroic events of the BalkanWars (1912-1913) and ancient historical figures like Alexander the Great as the Greek armyleader, his father, Philippos II and Aristotle, who was of a north-Greek origin. The political message is twofold: on the one side the ‘inner enemy’the communiststhat were defeated and the promotion of the new liberal social system and on the otherside the north neighbours, which not only represent the East Block, but they also conspire the history and the culture of the Greeks. This is the way how the ‘Cold War’was resultedin a full and totalitarian expression in art.

The Historical and Political Setting
 “National Art”and “Greekness”, Two ArtisticObsessions of The inter-war Period
 Bipolarity in Art and the Role of“ Abstractionism”in the Post-war Years
 Faces of a“ Nationalist Art”Following 1950
 참고문헌
 Abstract

• Miltiades M. Papanikolaou | 밀티아데스M. 파파니콜라우