Search Results

Astrology is the art of predicting events on earth as well as human character and disposition from the movements of the planets and fixed stars. Medieval astrology encompassed both general concepts of celestial influence, and the technical art of making predictions with horoscopes, symbolic maps of the heavens at particular moments and places constructed from astronomical information. The scientific foundations of the art were developed in ancient Greece, largely lost in early medieval Europe and recovered by the Latin West from Arabic sources in the 12th and 13th centuries. Late medieval astrological images were successfully Christianized and were adapted to particular contexts, acquired local meanings and changed over time.

Astrology developed into a scientific branch of learning in ancient Greece, but because of the opposition of the Church Fathers it was transmitted to early medieval Europe in only fragmentary form in technically unsophisticated textbooks and popular divinatory genres. Literary and scientific texts provided more general ideas about the nature and attributes of the planets which were influential on later iconography. The first significant astrological images appear in 11th-century illustrated astronomical texts (e.g. London, BL, Cotton MS. Tiberius BV), which were acquired and produced by monasteries to aid with time-keeping and the construction of the Christian calendar....

Type of large-format Bible, usually found in pandect (single-volume) form, produced in central Italy and Tuscany from around 1060 to the middle of the 12th century. They came out of the efforts of a reformist papacy intent on wresting control over ecclesiastical investiture from the Holy Roman Emperor. The Giant Bibles were produced in reformed canonries and monasteries and then exported to the same, not only in Italy but throughout Europe.

The term ‘Atlantic’ (from the mythological giant Atlas) is derived from their impressive size; dimensions range from 550 to 600 mms by 300 to 400 mms. Their script, derived from Caroline minuscule, is placed in two columns of around fifty-five lines. The texts are decorated with two initial types, which Edward B. Garrison designated as ‘geometrical’ and ‘full shaft’, both of which are derived from Carolingian and Ottonian exemplars, respectively. The iconography consists of full-length prophets, patriarchs, kings and saints as well as narrative scenes. The last are at times found as full-page cyclical illuminations and preface important textual divisions, especially Genesis. The iconography of the Giant Bibles is a specific Roman iconographical recension with its sources based in part on Early Christian pictorial cycles, such as the wall paintings of Old St Peter’s in Rome. These came from an era considered by the reformers to have been uncorrupted by the abuses that afflicted the Church when these Bibles were being made. While the Giant Bibles were promulgated by the Church of Rome as a symbol of its supreme authority, they also allowed the clergy to perform the liturgy, and the Divine Office in particular, properly....

Greek, 16th century, male.

Active in Otrantoc.1500.

Painter. Religious subjects.

Berlin: Descent from the Cross

Naples: St George

Greek, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1768, in Zákinthos; died 1834, at Zákinthos.

Painter. Religious subjects, portraits.

Cantunis was the pupil of Nicolas Cutuzis, and also studied in Venice.

Athens (Ethnikí Pinakothíki)

Zakinthos (MA)

Greek, 16th – 17th century, male.

Born c. 1558, in Greece (province of Achaia); died c. 1640, in Naples.

Painter, fresco artist, draughtsman. Religious subjects, allegorical subjects. Murals.

This painter came to Italy at the age of twenty-two, after having studied the rudiments of painting in his own country. He became a pupil of Tintoretto in Venice, where he spent five years. He then settled in Naples, where he spent the rest of his days. He was of a very jealous and uncompromising nature and often persecuted his contemporaries: Domenichino suffered particularly from his unpleasant behaviour....

Greek, 16th–17th century, male.

Active fromc.1576 in Spain.

Born c. 1541, in Heraklion, Crete; died 7 April 1614, in Toledo.

Painter, sculptor, draughtsman. Religious subjects, figures, portraits.

Toledo School.

El Greco (‘The Greek’) trained as an icon painter in the Byzantine tradition in his native Crete and spent 10 years in Italy, first in Venice, then Rome. From Italy he went briefly to Madrid, perhaps in search of commissions at the Escorial, and settled in Toledo in the summer of 1577. While there is little documentation of his workshop, his output while in Toledo implies the existence of a large studio, which was taken over after El Greco’s death by his son, Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli. El Greco was well educated and had a scholar’s library; his annotations in his copy of Giorgio Vasari’s ...

Greek, 19th century, male.

Born 1 March 1842, on Tinos (Cyclades); died 4 January 1901, in Munich.

Painter. Portraits, allegorical subjects, religious subjects, genre scenes, landscapes, still-lifes.

Nikolaos Gysis trained at the Athens school of fine arts and in 1865 at the Piloty school in Munich. He exhibited several times in Paris and was awarded medals in Munich in 1834 and 1892....

[Edhem, Osman HamdiHamdi Bey]

(b Istanbul, Dec 30, 1842; d Eskihisar, Gebze, nr Istanbul, Feb 24, 1910).

Turkish painter, museum director and archaeologist. In 1857 he was sent to Paris, where he stayed for 11 years, training as a painter under Gustave Boulanger and Jean-Léon Gérôme. On returning to Turkey he served in various official positions, including two years in Baghdad as chargé d’affaires, while at the same time continuing to paint. In 1873 he worked on a catalogue of costumes of the Ottoman empire, with photographic illustrations, for the Weltausstellung in Vienna. In 1881 he was appointed director of the Archaeological Museum at the Çinili Köşk, Topkapı Palace, in Istanbul. He persuaded Sultan Abdülhamid II (reg 1876–1909) to issue an order against the traffic in antiquities, which was put into effect in 1883, and he began to direct excavations within the Ottoman empire. As a result he brought together Classical and Islamic objects for the museum in Istanbul, including the Sarcophagus of Alexander, unearthed in Sidon in ...

Greek, 19th century, male.

Born 1829, in Chania (Crete); died 1869, in Cairo.

Painter. Religious subjects, genre scenes, portraits.

Kunelakis studied in St Petersburg, Rome and Florence.

Athens (Ethnikí Pinakothíki)

Greek, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1741, in Zakynthos; died 1813, in Zakynthos.

Painter. Religious subjects, portraits.

Kutuzis was a pupil of Panagiotis Doxaras and studied in Venice.

Athens (Ethnikí Pinakothíki)

Greek, 9th century, male.

Died 867, in Rome.

Painter.

This Greek painter of the Byzantine School suffered persecution under the iconoclastic Emperor Theophilus, who had him flogged for painting religious images. After recovering, the saint continued to paint pictures of the Virgin and Jesus.

Greek, 14th century, male.

Icon painter. Frescoes, church decoration.

Manuel Panselinos was a painter from northern Greece who has long been regarded as living during the 14th century. It seems an established fact that he worked on the decoration of the Protaton church on Mount Athos from ...

Greek, 20th century, male.

Active in France from 1922 and naturalised from 1949.

Born 12 August 1916, in Istanbul, to Greek parents; died 23 October 1985, in Eygalières, France.

Painter (including gouache), draughtsman (including ink/wash), sculptor, engraver, illustrator. Religious subjects, figures, portraits, scenes with figures, landscapes, mountainscapes, landscapes with figures, harbour scenes...

Greek, 17th century, male.

Active during the second half of the 17th century.

Born in Chania, Crete.

Painter. Church decoration.

Theodoros Pulakis studied under Elias Moschos. He worked in Zakynthos, Kaphallonia, Egina and Athens.

Greek, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 1871, in Vasiliko; died 29 December 1929.

Painter. Religious subjects. Murals.

Soutzos studied in Athens. He painted religious subjects, frescoes and decorative works in churches.

Greek, 20th century, male.

Born 1902, in Galaxidhion.

Painter, illustrator. Religious subjects. Murals, church decoration.

Spyros Vassiliou studied at the fine art school in Athens where he lived and worked. He was appointed to teach at the Papastratou Vocational College in 1930. His entire work was influenced by Byzantine art and Greek popular art, which moved towards poetic Surrealism....