Constantinos Volanakis

Private Collection, Athens

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In this monumental panorama, Volanakis deploys all of his painterly talents to present the viewer with a wealth of detail, from the rich tones in the lower left to the delicately-observed playing children. Volanakis makes even the most quotidian, rustic fishing boat in the lower right appear dignified and majestic. Although the use of figures separated at intervals is an effective technique, creating perspectival depth and drawing the eye in, nothing in the composition appears contrived, and the whole is evocative of peace and calm, the couples and families unhurried as they, like the viewer, take in the view.

The present work is a prime example of Volanakis' sensitive depiction of atmospheric conditions and natural elements within the cadre of the traditional marine painting. The painting is infused with delicate detail, complementing while not overwhelming the calm, glowing ambience for which Volanakis' work is renowned, revealing impressionist, plein air tendencies stylistically advanced for Greece at the time. Transposing an artistic style born in the countryside around Paris, Volanakis paints his native Mediterranean, with references to the Barbizon painters in general and Corot in particular, most evidently in the soft strokes of the trees behind the village. The broad expanse of horizon reflected in the tranquil surface of the sea, frames the expertly rendered landscape and the figures. Volanakis' focus on marine painting allowed him to examine every possible angle and element of the seascapes he observed first hand in the Mediterranean.

Volanakis is an artist of great importance in both the nineteenth-century and marine genre, most notably for his position as a key member of the Greek 'Munich School' movement of academic realism, almost belying the warmth and immediacy of his seascapes. Volanakis' blossoming interest in marine subjects was first exposed during his tenure as an accountant in the sugar firm of his brother-in-law Georgios Afentoulis, when his idle sketches of the harbour and small ships on the firm's ledgers drew the enthusiastic attention of his employer. Volanakis was duly sent, with the financial backing of his family, to the Academy of Arts in Munich, where he studied under Karl von Piloty. After his studies he worked in Munich and travelled to Venice and Trieste, cities whose picturesque port and harbour-oriented topography would prove inspirational.

As stated by the writer Pavlos Nirvanas, '[Volanakis'] soul had many ships to travel on and every wave knew it and beckoned to it' (Anreas Ioannou, Greek Painting in the 19^th Century, Athens, 1974). The artist's love of the sea, the ships and the figures that manned them, would lead him to retire to Piraeus in his later years to paint seascapes until his death in 1907.