Cretan Mantinades Poet — Kafeneion Portrait
155.11 €
An elderly Cretan man in a mountain kafeneion (coffeehouse) composing mantinades — the traditional improvised 15-syllable rhyming couplets of Cretan oral poetry, his lined face communicating decades of the island’s living tradition.
Description
The mantinades tradition of Crete — improvised 15-syllable rhyming couplets performed to the lyra (traditional fiddle) or composed solo — is one of the living oral poetry traditions of the Mediterranean, practiced by a diminishing but still active community of elder practitioners in the mountain villages of the Psiloritis, White Mountains, and Dikti ranges. This portrait was made in a kafeneion in the village of Anogia — the Cretan village most associated with mantinades composition and resistance tradition — the subject a 78-year-old former shepherd and noted mantinades composer shown in his characteristic position at his regular table with a double ristretto and his composition notebook.
Shot on a 50mm prime at f/2 in the available kafeneion light — a single window providing soft directional illumination on the left side of his face. The portrait communicates the living literary tradition of an island in its human embodiment.
