John Craxton

This book contains about 140 photographs taken by John Donat in the course of two consecutive travels in Crete, in 1960 and 1961. The photographs are interesting not only on account to their aesthetic value and artistic quality but also because of the highly individual manner in which Donat has immortalized the island, the people and their occupations so that the spirit of the period is powerfully evoked by them. Some of these photographs record typical alleyways and houses in the old town of Chania, Pipi’s picturesque barber shop in Ierapetra, an old woman’s face weathered by age, the erect postures of Cretan men, the alert look in the eyes of island children. At other times he makes almost cinematographic pictures of Bouzounieris’ taverna: its habitues, the sailors dancing the zeibekiko, the juke-box with photographs of Kazantzidis and Marinella. Moving on, he comes across the procession of the icon of the Virgin on 21 November, the feast of her Presentation in the Temple: the bishops in their ceremonial vestments in the middle of the litany, the soldiers with bayonets fixed lining the route to right and left, the banners borne aloft by acolytes who are unable even at such a moment to repress their playfulness.Once in the countryside, Donat is fascinated by old Byzantine churches with wall-paintings, by the outlines of hills and mountains, olive groves after rainfall, coffee-houses, stills for makingtsikoudia (an alcoholic distillation made from the residues of pressed grapes) and the olive-press. He becomes acquainted with country people, the Malefakis family in Ayios Ioannis, Pavlos and Heleni Orphanoudakis in Anopolis, and Papamarkos in Kandanos; and he photographs them all with the same affection as they show for him. In Kalo Chorio he witnesses preparations for a wedding. A lovely girl, who has just made up the marriage bed, joyfully attends to her hair. While Donat photographs her she averts her gaze, a gaze so intense she seems just to have escaped from an Italian neorealistic film. John Donat’s photographs display a wealth of variety. This book takes you travelling around Crete. It is a book which had its origin in travel, the travels of John Donat in Crete, and he in turns takes you travelling on a delightful journey, the one he describes in this book.