Theophilos ''washed our vision'' wrote in 1962, the Nobel awarded poet, George Seferis, . And he was right. Unwittingly, Theophilos will be the flag of Greek modernism and his art will highlight the idea of ''greekness'', an idea which haunts the  nation from 1830 onwards .. For two centuries, the Greeks are trying to analyze vainly,  the ''elements of Greekness'' like if it is something alien to us, like the hydrochloric acid formula. Theophilos, did not had to seek for ''Greekness''. He was able to experience it, and therefore, to paint it.
Theophilos dressed as Alexander the Great

His paintings are carrying Greece itself. From Alexander the Great and the Mermaid, to Erotokritos and Athanasios Diakos, Theophilos recounts the adventures of the Greeks vividly, through picturing something '' rare, impossible for the Greek landscape: a moment of color and air, which was stopped there bearing all its internal vitality and radiance of the move'' (G.Seferis, Dokimes). This was Theophilos and it was exactly this attitude that makes him a universal Greek. 
 
The exhibition  ''Theophilos. Paintings from the collection of the Commercial Bank of Greece''  in Benaki Museum (Vasilissis Sofias Av. ) will last from the 15th of September to the 30th of October.