Part VI

Ever faithful to his roots, Caras created his first collages, which stand out for the uniqueness of their palette, in Paris; immediately afterwards he consolidated his work even more intensely through the personal texture of his abstract compositions, where the strictures of non- objective art are recorded through the color and dynamism of the gesture, an explosive experience for the painter.

The deciphering of the expressionist tendency is also personal, where the tormented forms are the transmitters and receivers. In 1966 Paul Slusser wrote, among other things, that "the human form in Caras's work, whether as an autonomous or clustered shape, is always characterized by a strong feeling of stable structure and mass while, at the some time, it is distinguished for the dignity and quality of the silhouette".

The distinctive quality which sets apart the work of Christos Caras in all its stages - testimony to the authenticity of his personal contribution - is what also insures in the most sincere and dynamic manner the distancing of his post-realist works from the compositions of the surrealists, constituting yet another strong argument for the uniqueness of the artist. The measure and the style which are expressed in the case of this Greek painter, are the opposite poles of the "shock" experienced by the intense antitheses and contradictions between plants and animals, in the ripening of a fruit, in the very breathing of the earth and in the vibration of nature in its most immediate, primitive form, In short, in everything where if is not apparent but occurs, precisely the same as these things do not appear by themselves in the artist's creation, but occur. We identify this eroticism in the earth colors of a collage, in the density and the explosiveness of the chromatic material, in the abstract compositions and in the intensity of the forms of the expressionist period. It is in everything, inadmitted or admitted, which occurs between differing but always crucial moments, in those that have just been dramatized or that at any moment will occur in the post- realist creations, in those which are continually occurring or are found evolving in the period of spatial poetry. The term poetry characterizes straightforwardly and to the point independent of periods - the creations of Christos Caras when viewed as a whole.

The poetic feeling which they suggest and transmit is not only an articulation on the figurative-technical side. It surpasses to a great degree the style-pulse which is orchestrated even in an outline or, at the very least, in some minute trace, in order to constitute the supreme proof -confirmation of each authentic creation, Here is where it functions and suggests in a connective manner, and can be apprehended even by a spectator not very familiar with art.

Caras does not simply inspire according to the fundamental definition of art our imagination to supplement by itself the stimulations which his works contain. He exhorts our perception and our psyche - and this is very important at this point - to seize the idea which lies behind and within each thing that has been deciphered by the artist. This superb definition of art the crowning proof of its authenticity - a definition that was first given by the most modern of art critics, Plato which required the existence of an Idea before something could be called work of art - is absolutely reflected in the creations of Caras, whether we are speaking of abstract works or of figurative ones.

The existence and deciphering of the idea behind each of his works and the manner in which this communicates figuratively with the spectator - through a definite style, a pulse and an instinctual feeling of harmony - are revealed as fundamental components of Greek art from its very roots, to which our painter has been a paragon of faithfulness, Assimilating through these, as creatively as possible, the commands of modern art, so that his work would enclose an indisputable personality, he insured that in each of his creations the potential for substantive communication with a spectator exists, a communication which takes place not only on the part of the pointer but also on the part of the spectator; a true life experience.