<Paysage de Crète>

In 1937, Nicolas Ghika began a series of landscapes inspired by the island of Hydra, where he had spent his childhood, combining, in a unique style, Byzantine and Greek elements from his cultural heritage with influences from early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde movements. Landscape, Crete, painted later in his career, portrays a garden fragmented into different coloured zones, set upon a flexible geometric structure. Vegetal motifs bring rhythm to this composition, evoking the feel of a mosaic in refined colours.