Archival Giclée Pigment Print on Archival Paper
Limited Edition of 5
51 x 42 in
130 x 107 cm
US $ 3,900
In this evocative photograph from John Stathatos’ The Garden of the Hesperides series, a rugged landscape of boulders and textured rock walls unfolds under a canopy of shadowed branches. The dark, almost cave-like setting hints at the untouched and primordial, capturing a fragment of the Arcadian world that has endured through time. The scene is heavy with stillness, evoking a sense of isolation, as though this hidden enclave has stood quietly in reverence to nature’s enduring cycles.
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In this evocative photograph from John Stathatos’ The Garden of the Hesperides series, a rugged landscape of boulders and textured rock walls unfolds under a canopy of shadowed branches. The dark, almost cave-like setting hints at the untouched and primordial, capturing a fragment of the Arcadian world that has endured through time. The scene is heavy with stillness, evoking a sense of isolation, as though this hidden enclave has stood quietly in reverence to nature’s enduring cycles.
This image belowngs to Part I of the series, depicting the Greek cave where a shepherd’s sheepfold once stood. The massive stones and organic forms within the cave connect to the series' theme of an ancient Arcadian paradise, drawing upon classical ideals that fuse myth and landscape. The play of light on the rocks enhances the tactile quality of the stone, while the surrounding shadows create a mysterious atmosphere that invites contemplation, embodying the essence of an untouched, mythical Greece.
Stathatos’s black-and-white composition highlights the textures and contrasts within the cave, amplifying the feeling of timelessness. The starkness of the light falling on the stones against the deep shadows echoes the tension between order and disorder that he explores in the series. Here, nature’s forms seem to defy human intervention, embodying a kind of purity, a remnant of Arcadian idealism in a world increasingly distanced from such primal beauty. Through this image, Stathatos captures the essence of myth layered into the landscape, a poetic meditation on the remnants of paradise in a modern, chaotic world.