Kelderim-Tzelepis

It was Nikephoros Lytras, a dominant personality in the artistic life of Athens in the second half of the nineteenth century, who by his painting and by his teaching for some 40 years at the School of Fine Arts 'laid down a line' - that of the Munich Academy - providing Greek painting with an orientation and establishing many of its subsequent characteristics. His studies in Munich (1860 - 1866), his frequent contacts with Nikolaos Ghyzis, and his visits to the Bavarian capital and the East contributed to the shaping of a personal style of painting, with the introduction of genre painting as an expression of the national identity. Lytras succeeded in penetrating to the essence of Greek life and in interpreting it, retaining an idealistic character with embellishment and idealisation within the context of the function of genre painting, but also seeking, by means of simplicity, the truth of the specific moment of everyday life.