The Acropolis, after 1920
A painter with a wide-ranging education, which he acquired in the course of his travels in Western Europe, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg with the Russian landscape artist, and pupil of Aivazovsky, A.I. Kuindshi, Cheimonas concerned himself almost exclusively with landscape, which he rendered by means of the Impressionism which prevailed in virtually the whole of Europe. On his return to Russia in 1894, he was appointed professor at the St Petersburg Academy and later its Director. In 1920, he left the Soviet Union and settled in Athens.
In Acropolis, the Sacred Rock, the Anafiotika district, and, in the background, the Philopappus hill are depicted. This is one of the finest views of the Acropolis ever to have been painted and must have been produced immediately after Cheimonas's arrival in Greece in 1920, when the use of colour in his works was heavier. The excellent perspective permits the beholder to capture the appearance of the area at the time when the work was executed. The artist renders the dark green masses of the foliage of the trees which surround the Acropolis, as it stands radiant and bathed in light, by small, abrupt brush-strokes.
