This edition was published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition organized by the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank in the exhibition space of the Eynard Mansion (October 14 to December 3, 2016). The works presented (oils, watercolors, and temperas) capture the landscape that the artist sees from the window of his home in Petri, Lesvos.

These works are the result of many years of work carried out step by step from 2008 to 2015 and reveal another Chronis Botsoglou, not the painter of the human form, but the landscape painter. As Martha Christofoglou notes, in the case of Botsoglou, this shift from an eminently anthropocentric painter to landscape painting took a long time to occur.

The creator himself, in his book The Color of Study (Athens, 2005), confesses: “I say, when I grow old, when I have settled my debts, without any other concern I will sit here with a very large canvas to paint the mountain. I say in my old age, I will have the eyes to see the plain and the mountain and the sea. I will have gained the humility and patience to see the trees and the crops grow.”

Christos G. Lazaros writes among other things: “For Chronis Botsoglou, painting is not a naturalistic representation; it is a search and invention of reality. He does not paint what he knows; he paints to learn, to understand, and to express his own experience. [...] Chronis Botsoglou, by painting the real landscape, creates the world in which he lives and simultaneously shapes himself, creating the 'reality image', that is, the image that unites with reality without being identified with it.”

The portrait of the mountain is the image that captures and conveys the unity of its form, its physiognomy, and character, what makes it unique and unparalleled. Along with this is its constant presence, the duration and change in the light and darkness of each day, each season. It is the time that passes and changes it slowly and imperceptibly, while it retains its identity and character. It is the size, the strength, and the roots of it. It is the unceasing continuation of the everlasting life that makes it a habitat for people, animals, and plants. Therefore, if, while painting the portrait of the mountain, he simultaneously shaped his own style – which would reveal the uniqueness of his face – and created a world with the content and meaning that he would give it, then the portrait of the mountain would be a part of his world and would indeed function as a portrait of himself.