The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Minoan and later in Mycenaean Greece, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, while influencing the Roman Empire and its successor the Byzantine Empire. Other cultures and states such as the Frankish states, the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic and Bavarian and Danish monarchies have also left their influence on modern Greek culture, but historians credit the Greek War of Independence and democracy. Modern democracies owe a debt to Greek beliefs in government by the people, trial by jury, and equality under the law. The ancient Greeks pioneered in many fields that rely on systematic thought, including biology, geometry, history, philosophy, and physics. They introduced such important literary forms as epic and lyric poetry, history, tragedy, and comedy. In their pursuit of order and proportion, the Greeks created an ideal of beauty that strongly influenced Western art.
The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleolithic and the Iron Age. Written histories of European art often begin with the Aegean civilizations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. However a consistent pattern of artistic development within Europe becomes clear only with Ancient Greek art, which was adopted and transformed by Rome and carried; with the Roman Empire, across much of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.
Byzantine art comprises the body of Christian Greek artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from the decline of Rome and lasted until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the start date of the Byzantine period is rather clearer in art history than in political history, if still imprecise. Many Eastern Orthodox states in Eastern Europe, as well as to some degree the Islamic states of the eastern Mediterranean, preserved many aspects of the empire's culture and art for centuries afterward.
Classical sculpture refers generally to sculpture from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as the Hellenized and Romanized civilizations under their rule or influence, from about 500 BC to around 200 AD. It may also refer more precisely a period within Ancient Greek sculpture from around 500 BC to the onset of the Hellenistic style around 323 BC, in this case usually given a capital "C". The term "classical" is also widely used for a stylistic tendency in later sculpture, not restricted to works in a Neoclassical or classical style.
Albanian art refers to all artistic expressions and artworks in Albania or produced by Albanians. The country's art is either work of arts produced by its people and influenced by its culture and traditions. It has preserved its original elements and traditions despite its long and eventful history around the time when Albania was populated to Illyrians and Ancient Greeks and subsequently conquered by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans.
Modern Greek art is art from the period between the emergence of the new independent Greek state and the 20th century. As Mainland Greece was under Ottoman rule for all four centuries, it was not a part of the Renaissance and artistic movements that followed in Western Europe. However, Greek islands such as Crete, and the Ionian islands in particular were for large periods under Venetian or other European powers' rule and thus were able to better assimilate the radical artistic changes that were occurring in Europe during the 14th-18th century.
Cretan School describes an important school of icon painting, under the umbrella of post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becoming the central force in Greek painting during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The Cretan artists developed a particular style of painting under the influence of both Eastern and Western artistic traditions and movements; the most famous product of the school, El Greco, was the most successful of the many artists who tried to build a career in Western Europe, and also the one who left the Byzantine style farthest behind him in his later career.
Georgios Jakobides was a painter and one of the main representatives of the Greek artistic movement of the Munich School. He founded and was the first curator of the National Gallery of Greece in Athens.
The Heptanese School of painting succeeded the Cretan School as the leading school of Greek post-Byzantine painting after Crete fell to the Ottomans in 1669. Like the Cretan school, it combined Byzantine traditions with an increasing Western European artistic influence and also saw the first significant depiction of secular subjects. The school was based in the Ionian Islands, which were not part of Ottoman Greece, from the middle of the 17th century until the middle of the 19th century. The center of Greek art migrated urgently to the Ionian islands but countless Greek artists were influenced by the school including the ones living throughout the Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere in the world.
The most important artistic movement of Greek art in the 19th century was academic realism, often called in Greece "the Munich School" because of the strong influence from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich, where many Greek artists trained. The Munich School painted the same sort of scenes in the same sort of style as Western European academic painters in several countries, and did generally not attempt to incorporate Byzantine stylistic elements into their work.
Michael Damaskenos or Michail Damaskenos was a leading post-Byzantine Cretan painter. He is a major representative of the Cretan School of painting that flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries. Painters Georgios Klontzas and Damaskenos were major contributors to the Cretan School during the same period. Damaskinos traveled all over the Venetian Empire painting. He remained loyal to his Greek roots stylistically but incorporated some Italian elements in his work. He was strongly influenced by the Venetian school. He painted parts of the Cathedral of San Giorgio dei Greci. Damaskenos has 100 known works. He influenced the works of Theodore Poulakis.
The Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum is a museum of antiquities in Athens, Greece. It is situated in the north slope of Acropolis, in the district of Plaka. Founded in 1976, it houses the collection of Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos, which started being formed in 1923 and was donated to the Greek state in 1972. The collection features ca. 6500 items of Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, Byzantine and post-Byzantine art, spanning almost six millennia of history.
Angelos Akotantos was a Greek painter, educator, and protopsaltis. He painted icons in the maniera greca, at a time when that style was moving away from the traditions of the Byzantine Empire and towards the more refined aesthetic of the Cretan School. Akotantos taught painting to Andreas Pavias, Andreas Ritzos, and Antonios Papadopoulos, and his style influenced later artists such as Georgios Klontzas, Theophanes the Cretan, Michael Damaskinos and El Greco. Angelos's brother Ioannis was also a famous painter. There are 50 extant paintings reliably attributed to Akotantos, 30 of which bear his signature.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
Italo-Byzantine is a style term in art history, mostly used for medieval paintings produced in Italy under heavy influence from Byzantine art. It initially covers religious paintings copying or imitating the standard Byzantine icon types, but painted by artists without a training in Byzantine techniques. These are versions of Byzantine icons, most of the Madonna and Child, but also of other subjects; essentially they introduced the relatively small portable painting with a frame to Western Europe. Very often they are on a gold ground. It was the dominant style in Italian painting until the end of the 13th century, when Cimabue and Giotto began to take Italian, or at least Florentine, painting into new territory. But the style continued until the 15th century and beyond in some areas and contexts.
Emmanuel Skordilis, also known as Emmanouil Skordilis. He was a Greek Renaissance painter. He was active in Crete around the time Emmanuel Tzanes, Elias Moskos, and Philotheos Skoufos were painting in Crete. He belongs to the elite group of Greek painters that followed the Venetian influenced maniera greca in Crete. Sixty eight of his works survived. He is one of few artists to not travel to the Ionian Islands and participate in the Heptanese School. He eventually settled in the Cyclades on the inland of Milos. Christodoulos Kalergis is another prominent Greek artist associated with the Cyclades, he was from Mykonos. Skordilis was influenced by Georgios Klontzas, Michael Damaskinos and Angelos. Skordilis brought the artistic style of Crete to the Cyclades and influenced countless artists in that region.
Nikolaos Lampoudis was a 15th Century Greek painter from Sparta. The only work of his of which historians are aware is an icon of the Virgin and Child of a kind known as a hodegetria or eleusa.
Georgios Kalliergis or Kallergis was a Byzantine Greek painter. He is one of the few Greek painters of the Byzantine empire known by name. Other Byzantine painters include: Theodore Apsevdis, Kokkinobaphos Master, and Ioannis Pagomenos. Kalliergis was one of the masters of Thessaloniki. He was part of the Macedonian School of painting. His last name Kallergis was associated with a noble family from the island of Crete. Two other very famous Greek painters Nikolaos Kallergis and Christodoulos Kalergis shared the same last name. Georgios was associated with Mount Athos, Veria, and Thessaloniki. His most notable frescos are in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Veria, Greece.
Georgios Markou also known as Georgios Markou of Argos (Greek: Γεώργιος Μάρκου ο Αργείος. He was a Greek fresco and icon painter. He was active during the Greek Baroque and Rocco periods. He was an artistic representative of the Neo-Hellenikos Diafotismos. He was one of the few Greek painters that worked outside of the Ionian Islands. Other painters that worked outside the Ionian Islands were Christodoulos Kalergis and Makarios. They were also fresco painters. Other Greek fresco painters that traveled all over Greece were Fragkos Katelanos, Theophanes the Cretan, and Frangos Kontaris. Markou was also one of the few prominent painters to have painted in Athens. His surviving works can be found all over the ancient city. He also completed works on the island of Salamina. Three icons survived and countless frescos exist at seven different sites. Some of the frescos are in very good condition. His most notable frescos are at the Monastery Faneromeni, Salamina, Greece.
Manolis Chatzidakis was a Greek Byzantinist. He significantly contributed to the history of art of Greece. He specialized in the field of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine painting. He is considered the 20th century Giorgio Vasari and Bernardo de' Dominici. He was an archeologist, art historian, author, lecturer and curator. He also spoke Arabic and contributed to the field of Islamic art. He helped saved countless artifacts.
