The legendary Tsarouchis throughout his life refused to be recorded while speaking. The text of this book is a brilliant exception: he agreed to teach, he agreed to be filmed, and he agreed to be recorded while teaching. This is a valuable legacy for us who followed.

As he always refused the title of teacher, here he does not deliver lessons as a professor; while the topics of the lessons may be carefully studied and organized, reading the text, interspersed with aphoristic remarks of astonishing accuracy and originality, as well as with his spontaneous humor, we have the feeling that we are following his free associations in one of those conversations with his friends when he generously shared with us the secrets of his art, those for which he searched with touching persistence throughout his life.

He does not speak as an art historian but as a painter and for painters: “I mainly talk about painters and I apologize to others that I do not say things in a literary way for them to understand.” However, by watching the evolution of Greek art from the Minoan period to modern times, he constantly returns to the technical issues that concerned him, to the manifestations of general painting problems in Greek art, as well as the elements of its timeless unity.

Furthermore, he does not only deal closely with painting but insists on the structure of society and the ideology of each era, and in parallels with other arts. He is particularly interested, moreover, in theater and costumes, as he had worked many times as a set designer, and even directed performances of ancient tragedy himself.

As he says: “A person doesn't need to know so many things.” In this very personal history of art according to G. Tsarouchis, he speaks with the certainty of personal observation and does not reproduce others' views on Greek art. Like a great perfect filter, he has digested the entire history of art and has shaped an overall vision – the details do not interest him.

Tsarouchis (born in 1910) gave these lessons at the age of seventy-one, having behind him the experience of war, the dictatorship in Greece, and many years of peace and painting, having lived in Greece and France. It is the only time he accepted the title of teacher, which he always denied, wanting to emphasize the difficulty of painting as an art.

(From the Introduction by E. Doxiadis)