‘Moonlight in calm waters’ c1900s
Signed oil on canvas 20×52 cm
€ 6.000 – 7.000
A magnificent, idyllic seascape by Volanakis; as one of the main representatives of the academic realism of the so-called ‘Munich School’, which was a dominant figure of modern Greek and European painting of the 19th century, the artist shows exactly why he earned the name the ‘poet of the sea’. In this exquisite work, which the artist produced in his later years, poetry imbues the landscape, dominating it through silence and via the nocturnal, moonlit atmosphere, devoid of human existence. His masterful, signature handling of the conflict of light and color, imparts to his beloved subject matter a peculiar atmosphere of place and time; it is accompanied by a thorough depiction of ships against a background with distinct impressionistic fragments.
The painting has been restored
PROV: Private collection Heidelberg Germany