The National Art Gallery–Alexandros Soutzos Museum is an art museum located in the Pangrati district, Athens, Greece. It is devoted to Greek and European art from the 14th century to the 20th century. It is directed by Marina Lambraki-Plaka.
Closed and renovating now. 06.04.2019.
The Byzantine and Christian Museum is situated at Vassilissis Sofias Avenue in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 1914, and houses more than 25,000 exhibits with rare collections of pictures, scriptures, frescoes, pottery, fabrics, manuscripts, and copies of artifacts from the 3rd century AD to the Late Middle Ages. It is one of the most important museums in the world in Byzantine Art. In June 2004, in time for its 90th anniversary and the 2004 Athens Olympics, the museum reopened to the public after an extensive renovation and the addition of another wing.
Stavronikita Monastery is an Eastern Orthodox monastery at the monastic state of Mount Athos in Greece, dedicated to Saint Nicholas. It is built on top of a rock near the sea near the middle of the eastern shore of the Athonite Peninsula, located between the monasteries of Iviron and Pantokratoros. The site where the monastery is built was first used by Athonite monks as early as the 10th century. Stavronikita was the last to be officially consecrated as an Athonite monastery in 1536 and ranks fifteenth in the hierarchy of the Athonite monasteries and currently has 30 to 40 monks.
The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the modern times, an extensive collection of Asian art, hosts periodic exhibitions and maintains a state-of-the-art restoration and conservation workshop. Although the museum initially housed a collection that included Islamic art, Chinese porcelain and exhibits on toys, its 2000 re-opening led to the creation of satellite museums that focused on specific collections, allowing the main museum to focus on Greek culture over the span of the country's history.
The Historical Museum of Crete was founded by the Society of Cretan Historical Studies in 1953 and is housed in a neoclassical building of significant architectural merit in the city of Heraklion on Crete, an island of Greece. The museum was expanded following the addition of a new wing and floor.The museum's permanent collections highlight the art and history of Crete from the 4th century AD up to and including the Second World War. The collections are ordered chronologically and by subject matter, and are combined with visual material and multimedia. They include ceramics, sculptures, coins, jewellery, wall paintings, portable icons, ritual objects, manuscripts, heirlooms, weavings, the reconstructed interior of a Cretan rural home and much more.
The museum's finest exhibits are two paintings by Doménikos Theotokópoulos , born in Crete: The Baptism of Christ and View of Mount Sinai , the only works by the artist now on Crete.
Another outstanding exhibit is a 4×4 metre mock-up of mid-17th century Chandax , at the time when the city reached its peak under Venetian rule.
Of particular interest is the Nikos Kazantzakis Collection, featuring the study and library from the author's home in Antibes, France, personal effects, manuscripts of his works, first editions of books in various languages, etc.
The temporary exhibition rooms at the Historical Museum of Crete host exhibitions on a wide range of themes .The museum library, featuring rare editions and much archive and photographic material, caters for the needs of both researchers and the general public.
El Greco painted his Dormition of the Virgin near the end of his Cretan period, probably before 1567. El Greco's signature on the base of the central candelabrum was discovered in 1983. The discovery of the Dormition led to the attribution of three other signed works of "Doménicos" to El Greco and then to the acceptance as authentic of more works, signed or not , painted in 1566).This discovery constituted a significant advance in the understanding of El Greco's formation and early career. The painting combines post-Byzantine and Italian mannerist stylistic and iconographic elements. El Greco is now seen as an artist with a formative training on Crete; a series of works illuminate the style of early El Greco, some painted while he was still in Crete, some from his period in Venice, and some from his subsequent stay in Rome.The icon, which retains its function as an object of veneration in the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in Syros, was probably brought to the island during the Greek War of Independence. The icon conforms closely to the established pattern for this subject, which was very common in the Orthodox Church in which El Greco was raised and was influenced by. Nevertheless, it has lost some elements of the traditional Byzantine austerity, adopting traits of the Renaissance engravings.The composition of the Burial of the Count of Orgaz has been closely related to the Byzantine iconography of the Dormition of the Theotokos. The examples that have been used to support this point of view have a close relationship with the icon of the Dormition by El Greco that was discovered in 1983 in the church of the same name in Syros. Marina Lambraki-Plaka believes that such a connection exists. Robert Byron, according to whom the iconographic type of the Dormition was the compositional model for The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, asserts that El Greco as a genuine Byzantine painter worked throughout his life with a repertoire of components and motifs at will, depending on the narrative and expressive requirements of the art.
The Monastery of Saint John the Theologian is a Greek Orthodox monastery founded in 1088 in Chora on the island of Patmos. UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage site. It is named after St. John of Patmos.
A pinacotheca board, tablet' + θήκη, thíki, 'box, chest') was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or ancient Rome. The name is specifically used for the building containing pictures which formed the left wing of the Propylaea on the Acropolis at Athens, Greece. The Pinacotheca was located next to the temple of Athena Nike. Though Pausanias speaks of the pictures "which time had not effaced", which seems to point to fresco painting, the fact that there is no trace of preparation for stucco on the walls shows that the paintings were easel pictures. The Romans adopted the term for the room in a private house containing pictures, statues, and other works of art.
In the modern world the word is often used as a name for a public art gallery concentrating on paintings, mostly in Italy , such as the Pinacoteca Vaticana of the Vatican Museums , the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan , the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli built on the roof of the former Lingotto Fiat factory in Turin, Italy, with others in Bologna and Siena. In Brazil, there is the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. In Paris, the Pinacothèque de Paris. In Munich the three main galleries are called the Alte Pinakothek , Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne. The Pinacotheca, Melbourne, was a gallery for avant-garde art from 1967 to 2002. At Hallbergmoos, near Munich Airport, there was the Pinakothek Hallbergmoos between 2010 and 2014.
