The life of Giannoulis Chalepas (Tinos, 1851 - Athens, 1938) resembles a fairy tale, as it includes ingredients of timeless and irresistible charm: the talented young man, the romantic disappointment, madness, confinement, the patient mother, ascetic old age, the otherworldly creator, the peculiar works, the regained glory. This study focuses, beyond the myth, on the elements of the subjective journey that can be confirmed and substantiated by valid clinical hypotheses.

What is remarkable in Chalepas' case, what stimulates thought and seems to inspire those who have attempted some psychological interpretation, is the amazing revival of the artist after 40 whole years of mental illness and withdrawal from social ties. We propose for Chalepas' creatively mature and mentally calm period the hypothesis of a stabilization of a "symbolic" character, utilizing the late teachings of Jacques Lacan. The latter reveals in a very original way that beyond and behind the subject of the unconscious, with its linguistic origins, there is another dimension where the speaking being is called to exist as the "response of the real".

Giannoulis Chalepas, although immersed in a world of silence, was the bearer of such an unfathomable and unpredictable existential choice, based on his bodily practice of sculpting and the pictorial possibilities that it entails.