Cretan icons from 1400 to the present day.

Now the question is, how did this painting in Crete develop so much. Crete is a very big island, and Orthodox, and there, by the way, you already had wallpaintings everywhere in the churches. And icons probably, but most of them have been lost. In many little churches in Crete you find very early wall paintings, from before 1300 say. The Byzantine icon painters fled to Crete, because the Turks were on their doorstep, the Turks conquered huge swaths of land around the capital, Constantinople, in the last few centuries before the fall of the capital in 1453, and the population saw it coming and so did the icon painters, and from 1400 they started emigrating. Well Crete was a very safe area. The Venetians ruled there and they provided stability there, plus they were somewhat tolerant. And also lovers of art! So Crete was the emigration country number one. In Heraklion they get to know Italian art, Gothic for example. And they take a trip to the capital of the empire, Venice, and then they see all the Gothic art there too, which is very colorful, with large areas of color, and with lights in the areas of color, you can feel it coming, just like on the icons, and that becomes an influence, the icon changes, becomes brighter, also becomes more Mediterranean, that's a second influence.

If you compare the angel Michael of the capital, now in the Byzantine Mudeum in Athens, to the angels that the emigrants who painted in Crete, you just see that the Mediterranean colors have merged into the icons. And so that's the new style, from 1400 to 1600.You have Mediterranean colors, you have the 3 lights on the color fields, and the beautiful compositions, they also imported them from Italy, even from Germany, I don't know which icons exactly, but such a Crucifixion may well have come to Crete from southern Germany and then through a pack of etches, (or engravings). Or at least Italian compositions ended up in Crete as preliminary or drawings for models. This has been proven.It does not detract anything from the authenticity of the icons, but it does elevate the icons of the Cretans to a higher level again. 'T is just very beautiful. That icon of the Annunciation of Theophanes is very well put together, compositionally, and that is partly due to the West. And so that's the Cretan school, they just pick a little bit here and there: drawings, colors, lines, recipes, pigments.

And the crazy thing is, the first painters, I mention especially Angelos Akotantos, also had the idea: we have to write it down once, sequences! And what do you do first, and what do you do after! And how to make eyes, eyebrows, mouth, what do we do with that

The crazy thing is: you come across recipes that last for two centuries with Angelos already, so apparently the Godfather of Cretan painting, in the early 15th century. This is how the mouth is painted! Also by Theophanes, who painted a hundred years later. So it also became very scholarly, that painting. And what advantage did that have, if you compare it to Macedonian painting? That it became a brilliant style and it stayed. Because you just had to paint the mouths as it was taught by the master of the studio. And that dated back to Angelos indirectly. So brilliant painting started immediately in Crete, and it lasted for 200 years. So the long duration is another advantage of the school-like, Northern Greece's school doesn't have that at all. There you can expect just about anything, we can see that from the angel Michael exhibited in the Byzantine museum. Everything is pretty much possible there and there are few rules. And so you have a lot of diversity there, but very few divergent views in Cretan painting. And who are we? We are Cretan painters, we follow those rules. And it is also partly due to the rules. We follow them, and that is also the success of our icons. Because it's not a broody work.

Then Cretan painting ends, the thaw sets in and in 1669 Crete is conquered by the Turks. That is the end of the school

Between 1600 and 1669 you don't have many big names. There is one Tzanes, though, who is very good in the mid-17th century. And you have another person like Poulakis and he plunged into a renaissance that he saw in Italy probably. His icons are choking with angels and soldiers and cities, seas, mountains in the background. And you can also see right away, the draft just comes in, and they start wanting to put a lot on the icons. In the manner of the Renaissance and the Baroque.

There are two important men from the late period, who worked around 1575. That's El Greco, whose name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, he started as an icon painter and he made very beautiful things. Actually much too good for an icon painter. He comes from Crete, and he figures on Patmos perhaps, on Syros certainly, and he also has something voluptuous right away, and you feel it coming, he tends toward Renaissance painting, he goes to Venice of course where the manierist Tiepolo resides, and there he is discovered by the Italians and then by the Spaniards, and they say, will you come and paint at the palace of the King of Spain in Granada. And of course he did. But now when you look at El Greco's painting, you think, hey what a nice con! Because the edges are not tight, but the lights are there. Icon lights. So those edges are rsmooth, but the way he develops a blue cloth, then you have to say, that's very good work, and it's true that he started out as an icon painter.

So that's the exciting thing about El Greco for us. And he's very religious huh, he painted a lot of religious things. Those apostles and those evangelists. Maybe he remained orthodox at heart. And who is the other great painter of the late Cretan school? That's Damaskinos, of course he was already very good when he started, and he went to Venice to seek his fortune just like El Greco, and he just painted Renaissance there. Just painting human faces and after models and beautiful clothes and rich clothes of the notables, of the doge, and these mythological and religious scenes, he could do everything. His Christmas! His style is very Renaissance, you have to say. Servants, horses, wearing fine clothes, an abundance of people, a jób, but he loved it, of course, all full of those icons, - if you have to call them icons! I did say, well, if that icon of Christmas is at the front of the church, I might burn a candle in front of it and make a cross. But when you see it in the museum, you think, well, it's religious art. Because he's also on it himself. He's one of the kings! Looking at us.
Now what is heartening about Damaskinos, then he goes back to Crete, and there he starts painting icons again, but very much Byzantine icons. Then he paints Symeon with Christ on his arm, and Mother of God's. He worked a lot, they figure on Patmos, Athos and in Italy, among other places. The very finest Byzantine icons. He goes back to the roots. And then it's just another icon painter, actually incredibly beautiful.  We think he's a little too smooth, because he can do anything. We also painted his Antony in class, because he's great. A bit capricious, and he also breaks the rules of the school: then he has a light too little, then too much, to make you drowsy if you want to discover a system in it.  So it is no longer the Cretan system.But yes, very engaging icons, someone who can paint very well. In Greece we painted a Mother of God by him.

Then the Turks conquer Crete, then actually a kind of Middle Ages begin.Greece is also under Turkish rule, did not produce icons. Do you know that within a few generations the technical knowledge is completely gone? That's crazy, but 50 years later you think, 50 years after the fall of Crete, yes do those people know nothing at all?Apparently so they don't. Then you get brown icons, green icons, icons with very thick lines, and naive ones, and this lasted quite a long time. There came western painting in icons, so they started painting blue skies.

With clouds, with towns, with trees, mountains, you have all that in this period. They become more little paintings, even with oil paint! It lasted until 1980, so until then you had terribly stale icons in all the Greek churches. So now there has been a renaissance.There was a teacher at the Academy of Athens around 1950, Fotis Kontoglou, who went to Athos for research, and came across all these beautiful icons in depots, and he thought: that's just painting! Then he dug up some of these icons and found out that this was the Cretan style that was no longer considered beautiful. So he started painting in that style at the academy, and he wrote the painting book, Ekfrasis, and he reintroduced the new style. And in 1970 you already have painters influenced by Kontoglou, and around 1990 a lot. And by the year 2000, all Greeks were painting in the Cretan style. So it's been a huge revival. And Neoklis started painting icons in that style in 1980, then he was one of the first, and in 1990 I met Neoklis and then he taught me. At that time it was not clear that this was going to be the style then. Neoklis could only tell, this is the best thing you can do, Jan, you really have to do that. And 10 years later he says: Well everybody is painting Cretan. And we ourselves have witnessed that change.We have seen it change before our eyes.

And the funny thing is, we're totally in that new style all together. Dutch people! All the students and 10,000 Greeks!