The Dirge in Psara

In the 1880s the small Aegean islands lived off the sea, and losing men to it was ordinary. This is a house on Psara, and the family inside is mourning a sailor who did not come home. There is no body, so the rite is held around the one thing left of him, a red fez laid on the floor in the middle of the room. Women and children sit in a circle around it. The father has withdrawn to the far right, alone in the shadow, and a stool lies overturned on the tiles. Lytras gave the faces almost no features and thinned his paint until the weave of the canvas shows through in places, which leaves the room looking like something caught halfway. The National Gallery in Athens dates the picture to before 1888. That fez is the only strong colour anywhere in it.