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"I must confess that the 20m2 picture had an incredible effect on spectators when I opened the door of the studio: they were frentic with joy and the street was full of cries, 'Il maestro ungherese trovato nostro theatro greco'. They wanted to give me a pretty sum to keep the picture here. After long hesitation, I said good-bye to Taormina", wrote Csontváry in 1912 (Energy and Art). He had been preparing for this picture for years, and kept returning to Taormina. He painted "Full Moon in Taormina" in 1901 and "Almond Blossoms" in 1902. After arriving in Taormina in the winter of 1904, he first painted "Little Taormina" and the following summer he finished the "most colourful sun way of the world". The experiences in Taormina, Greek art, his attraction to and identification with objects of a cultic origin, resulted a work of unique beauty. Csontváry's theory of colours ("stages of colours of sun way) more or less complies with the law of complementary colours, making each other more intensive, yet he was not satisfied with it, he was in search of intensifying decorative colours. Opulent colours of Taormina, different shades of yellow, red and blue, and transitions of the sky from green to grey unite the Ionean Sea, the snow covered peak of Etna and the geometrical order of the Greek theatre both timeless and transcendental.
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