Nikiphoros Lytras
Encyclopedia
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. He was born in Tinos, and trained in Athens at the School of Arts. In 1860 he won a scholarship to Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich. After completing these studies, he became a professor at the School of Arts in 1866, a position he held for the rest of his life. He remained faithful to the precepts and principles of the academaism of Munich, while paying greatest attention both to ethographic themes and portraiture. His most famous portrait was of the royal couple, Otto and Amalia, and his most well-known landscape a depiction of the region of Lavrio.
History
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
sculptor. In 1850 to the age of eighteen years he went to Athens to study in the School of Arts
Athens School of Fine Arts
The Athens School of Fine Arts , is Greece's premier art school whose main objective is to develop the artistic talents of its students.-History:Athens School of Fine Arts was established on 12 January 1837, known as the School for the Arts...
. He studied painting with Ludwing Thierch and Raffaelo Ceccoli. With his graduation in 1856 he started teaching there the course of Elementary Writing.
In 1836 with a Greek government’s scholarship he went to Munich to study in the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts. His teacher there was Karl von Piloty
Karl von Piloty
Karl Theodor von Piloty was a German painter.Von Piloty was born in Munich. His father, Ferdinand Piloty , enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840, Karl was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Karl Schorn and Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld...
. In 1862 after King Otto
Otto of Greece
Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...
was exiled the scholarship was no longer available to Lytra so the expenses undertook the ambassador of Greece in Vienna Simon Sinas
Simon Sinas
- Biography :Simon Sinas was born in 1810 in Vienna. He was of Greek origin, while his family originated from Moscopole. He served as Greek Consul in Vienna, and later as Minister to Austria, the Kingdom of Bavaria, and Germany. The son of Georgios Sinas, also a benefactor and diplomat, Sinas...
. In the summer of 1865 before his return to Greece he meets Nicholaos Gysis
Nicholaos Gysis
Nikolaos Gyzis was considered one of Greece's most important 19th-century painters. He was most famous for his work Eros and the Painter, his first genre painting. It was auctioned in May 2006 at Bonhams in London, being last exhibited in Greece in 1928...
in Munich. There they visited and studied a lot of art masterpieces.
With his return in Athens Lytras became professor in the Athens School of Fine Arts
Athens School of Fine Arts
The Athens School of Fine Arts , is Greece's premier art school whose main objective is to develop the artistic talents of its students.-History:Athens School of Fine Arts was established on 12 January 1837, known as the School for the Arts...
in the department of Painting and he taught there for 38 years.
In 1873 and for four years he travelled to Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
and Minor Asia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
with Nicholaos Gysis. In 1879 he married Irene Kyriakidi daughter of a tradesman from Smyrna and they had six children.
His son Nicolaos Lytras followed in his footsteps by also studying at the Munich academy of Fine Arts and also heading the Athens School of Art. In later life he founded the 'Art Group', which many years later in 1919 exhibited in Paris, with participants including the engraver Demetrios Galanis
Demetrios Galanis
Demetrios Galanis was an early twentieth century Greek artist and contemporary and friend of Picasso. In 1920, the year he completed his `Seated Nude', he exhibited alongside such major figures of modern art as Matisse and Braque, while from 1921 on he also exhibited alongside Juan Gris, Dufy,...
, a friend of Derain, Braque and Picasso and a member of the French Academy. The nineteenth-century painters Ioannis Altamouras
Ioannis Altamouras
Ioannis Altamouras was an outstanding Greek painter of the 19th century famous for his paintings of seascapes.- Biography :...
and Periklis Pantazis (both of whom died young) may be regarded as forerunners of this group.
Nikiphoros Lytras died at the age of 72 in 1904, after a short illness that is believed to have been caused by colours’ chemicals substances. After his death Georgios Jakobides
Georgios Jakobides
'Georgios Jakobides was a Greek painter and one of the main representatives of the Greek artistic movement of the Munich School. He founded and was the first curator of the National Gallery of Greece in Athens.- Life :His first education was in Izmir, Turkey...
took his place in Athens School of Fine Arts.
Art
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...
. His subjects were inspired from Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Greek history.
After his return to Greece he started to paint portraits and every day life scenes.
Lytra’s paintings about every day life correspond in the ideology of the ruling class of the times. His trips in Minor Asia and Egypt enriched his paintings with dark skinned children and other elements of Anatolia. The last period of his life he painted many scenes about aging, loneliness and the fear of death.
Lytras was one of the most famous painters in Athens. He participated and honored in many exhibitions : in Zappeion’s
Zappeion
The Zappeion is a building in the National Gardens of Athens in the heart of Athens, Greece. It is generally used for meetings and ceremonies, both official and private.-Constructing the Zappeion:...
exchibitions, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900) and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(1873). Also as he was the official portraitist in Athens and he painted many high class members of his times.
His contribution in art was conceived also through his courses in the Athens School of Fine Arts. Even he was detached in the school of Academic Realism
Munich School
The most important artistic movement of Greek Art in the 19th century was academic realism, often called in Greece "the Munich School" because of the strong influence from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich , where many Greek artists trained.- History :...
and stayed away from impressionists’
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
influences he marked Greek art history in his own way.
In 1930 he was decorated with the Golden Cross of Savior. In 1909 – after his death- some of his paintings were presented in Piloty’s School (1885–1886) in Munich. In 1933 in Athens School of Fine Arts an exhibition with Lytra’s 186 paintings were presented.