Photographing Antiquity
Photography as an intercultural mediator in multimedia production of symbolic and performative antiquity representations
2025-2027
Principal Investigator: Marianna Karali
Host Institution: IMS/FORTH
The "El Greco Center" of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies is the only center for scientific research in art history operating in Greece.
The Center was originally established in 1990, at the initiative of the Professor – now Emeritus Professor – of the University of Crete, Nicos Hadjinicolaou, aiming at the scientific study of El Greco's work. However, from the outset it has hosted other art history research projects as well.
The Center’s wider objectives are the research in the history of modern Western art from the late Μiddle Ages to the 20th century, the calling of scientific congresses and conferences, the organization of lectures and seminars, the publication of specialized studies, the establishment of a specialized library and photo gallery, and the organization of relevant exhibitions.
The research projects that take place in “El Greco Center” concern mainly the relations of the artistic production in the Greek area with that of the Mediterranean and the wider European area and are carried out in cooperation with various educational and cultural institutions in Crete and in Greece (The Benaki Museum, The French Archaeological School, etc.), as well as abroad.
People
Eugenios D. Matthiopoulos
Professor - History of Art
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
Curriculum vitae 
Panayotis K. Ioannou
Associate Professor in Art History
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
Curriculum vitae 
Marianna Karali
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
Curriculum vitae 
Olga Gratziou
IMS Honorary Fellow, Professor Emerita
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
Curriculum vitae 
Research Projects
PanArtExh
The Institution of Panhellenic Art Exhibitions, 1938-1987
2020-2022
The proposed research project aims at the systematic documentation and critical analysis of the fifteenth Panhellenic Art Exhibitions, which were organised between 1938 and 1987 and were the most important periodical large-scale art exhibition in 20th century Greece. This study based on extensive research in state and private archives, state and private art collections, as well as in the daily and periodical press, shall provide us with essential information about the artistic production of each era (e.g. the dominant artistic trends), the means of State intervention in the arts and the trends within the art market. Finally, it will look at the art criticisms, which formed the dominant aesthetic canon, by promoting certain artistic criteria and consequently influencing the reception of the artworks by the public and the direction of the artistic production in Greece.
RICONTRANS
RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th - early 20th c.)
2018-2024
The Russian religious artifacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings), held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious, ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value, and uses. Their transfer and reception constitutes a significant component of the wider process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th- early 20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies and social anthropology, RICONTRANS aims: to map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; to follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; to analyze the moving factors of this process; to study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; to inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social and cultural environments; to investigate the influence of these transferred artifacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
METOPO (WP9)
From the landscape of the romantics to the artof the land. Representations of the Greek landscape in the arts from the 18th until the late 20th century (painting, engraving, photography)
2017-2021
Scientific responsible: Evgenios D. Matthiopoulos
The project aims at the systematic recording and study of the pictorial production (paintings, prints and photographs) of the Greek natural landscape from the 18th to the 20th century.
METOPO (WP6)
Greek artists’ Italian perspective, 18th-19th centuries
2017-2021
Scientific coordinator: Panayotis K. Ioannou
This research programme is a continuation of the programme “Greek artists in the West (15th-18th century)”. It examines the pursuits of Greek artists who settled in various cities of the Italian peninsula and became engaged in its artistic developments, but did not cut their ties with Greece.
Western Art in Crete
Western Art in Crete
1996
The aim of the program is to study the art of Crete in the Venetian period (13th–17th c.).
At the IMS there is a library specialising in two main fields. One concerns the creation of a library devoted to the work of El Greco, Italian (mainly Venetian and Roman) painting of the 16th C and Spanish painting of the 16th-20th C. The library has already been expanded with journals, unique in Greece, which were purchased with funds donated by the Anastasios G.Leventis Foundation, 3E Company and donations from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, as well as the Zentralinstitut of Munich.
Furthermore, important monographs on El Greco have been donated to or purchased by the library, and there are catalogues of major exhibitions which have been organised in Greece and abroad.
At the El Greco Centre there is a photo archive for the study of the work of El Greco, as well as art in Crete and Italy 16th-20th C, and art in Spain 16th-20th C.
The photo archive was expanded in recent years with the digitalisation of most of the artist´s works and with slides donated by the Kunsthaus of Zurich and the National Gallery of London.
- Database for the study and classification of the work of El Greco (a. authentic works, b. workshop paintings, c. works attributed to him). Here have been collected and presented the viewpoints of eight major Greco scholars (M.B.Cossio, A.L.Mayer, M.Legendre, H.E.Wethey, T.Frati, Camon Aznar (ed. 1970), J.Gudiol, J.M.Pita) as found in their relevant monographs.
- Archive of papers on El Greco.
- Press Archive of the Centre.
- Press Archive of the exhibition "Alexander the Great in European Art."
The El Greco Centre employs four scholarship students who attend the postgraduate program "History of European Art" at the University of Crete, the Department of History-Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and History of Art. All the post-graduate students have access to the library and photo archive within the framework of the program for the production of work related to seminars and coursework. The following postgraduate students of the "History of European Art" program have been employed by the El Greco Centre on scholarships:
- Nadia Vlahou
- Vali Georgaka
- Mariza Daleziou
- Noti Klaga
- Maria Mavrogeni
- Stelios Panagiotakis
- Dimitra Sarri
- Thomaï Sarrigianni
- Dimitra Stavrou
- Penny Filiotaki
- Gogo Fragiadaki
- Manolis Karterakis
- Alexandros Teneketzis
Currently the following scholarship students continue to be employed:
- Sougioultzi Katerina
- Pegioudis Nikos
- Sfakianaki Popi
- Stefanidi Aspasia
On 13th September 1990, at the end of the international congress entitled "El Greco of Crete", which was organised in Heraklion concurrently with the exhibition of the artist´s works, the Academic Council of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies approved the proposal to establish the El Greco Centre (KDT). The aim of the El Greco Centre, which has no institutional/administrative autonomy within the framework of the IMS, is the study and promotion of the work of El Greco, art in Crete and Italy in the 16th C, as well as art in Spain in the last five centuries.
The cornerstone of the Centre is the specialised library and its photo-archive, both of which are being constantly expanded with new material. Donations from Greek institutes and businesses, as well as private individuals, have already made possible the purchase of a number of very important books and complete series of Spanish journals (Archivio Español de Arte y Arquelogia, Arte Español, Boletin de la Sociedad Español de Excursiones), while the Spanish Ministry of Culture donated the available volumes of the journals Goya and Reales Sitios. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the ITE, the El Greco Centre brought El Greco´s painting "St Peter" from America, which, after being exhibited in Heraklio, was purchase by the National Gallery. Every 4-5 years the El Greco Centre organises an international symposium devoted to the work of El Greco. At the El Greco Centre, the program "El Greco in Italy" has already been completed.
As a result of the issues raised at earlier stages by the research on the above topic and the completion of the program, the exhibition "El Greco in Italy and Italian Art" was organised in co-operation with the National Gallery, and there was a similarly entitled symposium in Rethymno at which 34 experts from Greece, Europe, America and Japan spoke. The exhibition and symposium were reported in European and foreign newspapers and journals.
The objective of the research is the study of works produced by El Greco, the study of art in Crete and Italy in the 16th C, as well as art in Spain in the last five centuries.
Academic Supervisor
Nicos Hadjinicolaou (Professor of History of Western Art, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete)
Research team
Postgraduate students, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
- Nadia Vlahou
- Vali Georgaka
- Mariza Daleziou
- Noti Klaga
- Maria Mavrogeni
- Stelios Panagiotakis
- Dimitra Sarri
- Thomaï Sarrigianni
- Dimitra Stavrou
- Penny Filiotaki
- Gogo Fragiadaki
- Manolis Karterakis
- Alexandros Teneketzis
- Sougioultzi Katerina
- Pegioudis Nikos
- Sfakianaki Poppy
- Stefanidi Aspasia
- Sapountzi Eleni
Publications
Articles
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Μεταμορφώσεις του Γκρέκο ανάμεσα στο 1838 και στο 1912", O Πολίτης, November 1987, pp. 62-69. Reprinted in Δελτίο Εταιρείας Σπουδών Νεοελληνικού Πολιτισμού και Γενικής Παιδείας, 10, 1988, pp. 93-103.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Domenicos Theotocopoulos 450 years later", essay in the exhibition catalogue El Greco of Crete, Iraklion, Crete, 1990, p. 56-111.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Inequalities in the Work of El Greco and the Problem of their Interpretation", in Ariadni, 6, 1993, pp. 175-212.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Οι «βυζαντινές αναμνήσεις» στο έργο του Γκρέκο", in Ariadni, 7, 1994, pp. 109-149.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "O Άγιος Πέτρος του Δομήνικου Θεοτοκόπουλου", catalogue of the exhibition of the painting at the National Gallery of Athens, Athens, 1994.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Une vision mystique du Greco : Barres et le secret de Tolede", in El Greco of Crete - Proceedings of the International Symposium, Iraklion, 1995, pp. 587-611.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "El Greco in Italy", essay in the exhibition catalogue El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, Athens, 1995, pp. 57-72.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Entries for the exhibition catalogue El Greco in Italy and Italian Art : The Resurrection by Paolo Veronese, The Adoration of the Shepherds, Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Boy Lighting a Candle, Portrait of a Man, by El Greco, op. cit., pp. 228-235, 288-293, 334-341, 348-353, 354-359 and 368-373.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Responsible of the 16pages special leaflet dedicated to the above exhibition by the newspaper TO BHMA (3.12.1995).
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "The Present State of El Greco Studies", essay published in the catalogue of the exhibition El Greco - La seva revaloracio pel Modernisme Catala/ El Greco - su revalorizacion por el Modernismo Catalan, Barcelona, Museu Nacional d΄Art de Catalunya, 20.12.1996-2.3.1997, pp. 16-23.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "El deseo erotico en la obra de Goya", in VIII Jornadas de arte : La mujer en el arte espanol, Departimento de Historia del Arte "Diego Velazquez" - Centro de Estudios Historicos, Madrid, editorial Alpuerto, 1997, pp. 297-307.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "The Disputes about Alexander and his Glorification in the Visual Arts", in Alexander the Great in European Art, Thessaloniki, 1997, pp. 15-24 and the entries for 40 exhibits.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, El Greco revestido de ideologias nacionalistas", in El Greco - Identidad y Transformacion, Madrid, 1999, pp. 57-83 and the entries for items: No 8 (San Francisco recibiendo los estigmas, Bergamo), No 9 (San Francisco recibiendo los estigmas, Naples), No 11 (La adoracion de los pastores, Frederickssund), No 13 (Vista del Monte Sinai Heraklion), No 15 (El Soplon, Naples), No 16 (El Soplon, Florida), No 21 (La Santa Faz, Madrid), No 22 (La Santa Faz, New York), No 50 (La Santa Faz, Madrid), No 80 (San Pedro, Athens).
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "El Greco : La Santa Faz ", published in the exhibition catalogue Classics of Modern Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art, Andros, 1999, pp. 26-33.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Introduction", in Nikolaos M. Panayotakis Τα νεανικά χρόνια του Δομήνικου Θεοτοκόπουλου (The Early years of El Greco), Iraklion, Crete University Press, 1999, pp. VII-XIV.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "El Greco΄s Italian Period and Ellis K. Waterhouse", in El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, Proceedings of the International Symposium organised in 1995, by the Institute for Mediterranenan Studies, University of Crete,1999, pp. 71-103.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Introduction", in Fernando Marias, El Greco and the art of his time, p. VII-XXXXIV, Crete University Press, 2001.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Zwishen postbyzantinischem Griechentum und westlicher Modernitat", essay in the catalogue of the El Greco Exhibition, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2001, p. 59-67 (english translation in a separate edition : "Between Post-byzantine Hellenism and Western Modernity", p. 33-37).
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Les ideologies conservatrices face a l΄oeuvre de Goya", in Propaganda e Poder, Lisbon, Edicoes Colibri, 2001, p. 383-419.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Le Greco defenseur de l'art byzantin",δοκίμιο στο Lezioni di Metodo- Studi in onore di Lionello Puppi, Terra Ferma, Vicenza, 2002, σελ. 381-391.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "La Crucifixion del Museo del Prado", στο El Greco, Fundacion Amigos del Museo del Prado, Βαρκελώνη, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2003, σελ. 307-334.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "Kunstnerens oje J.F. Willumsens analyser af El Greco", στον κατάλογο J. F. Willumsen pa sporet af el Greco, Frederikssund, J.F. Willumsen Museum, 2005, σελ. 132-143.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, "El Greco at the End of the 20th Century: Impressions from Reading the Exhibition Catalogue El Greco - Identity and Transformation", δοκίμιο στο El Greco: The First Twenty Years in Spain, Πρακτικά του Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου που οργανώθηκε το 1999 από το Ινστιτούτο Μεσογειακών Σπουδών, Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης, 2005, σελ. 279-312.
Books, exhibition catalogues and collective volumes
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco: Documents on his Life and Work, Crete University Press, Rethymnon, 1990.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco: Byzantium and Italy, Crete University Press, Rethymnon, 1990.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco: Works in Spain, Crete University Press, Rethymno, 1990.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of the exhibition catalogue El Greco of Crete, Iraklion, 1990.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, In Search of El Greco, exhibition catalogue of documents on his life and work, Iraklion, Crete, 1990.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Meanings of an Image, Crete University Press, Rethymnon, 1994.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, L' opera completa del Greco, Preface, Corrections and Additions to the Greek Edition, Ed. Nicos Votsis, Athens, 1994.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, L' opera pittorica completa di Goya, Preface, Corrections and Additions to the Greek Edition, Ed. Nicos Votsis, Athens, 1995.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco of Crete - Proceedings of the International Symposium, Iraklion, Crete, 1-5 September 1990, Iraklion, 1995.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of the exhibition catalogue El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, Athens, 1995.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of the exhibition catalogue Alexander the Great in European Art, 2 vol. Thessaloniki, 1997.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Rethymno, Crete, 22-24 September 1995, University of Crete, Rethymno, 1999.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of the volume El Greco - Altarpieces in Spanish Churches, Crete University Press, Rethymno, 1999.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Responsible for the Greek edition of the exhibition catalogue El Greco - Identity and Transformation, Skira, Milan, 1999.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, From Moliere to Goya, Crete University Press, Iraklion, 2002.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco: The First Twenty years in Spain, Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Rethymno, Crete, 22-24 October 1999, University of Crete, Rethymno, 2005.
- Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Editor of El Greco's studio, Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Rethymnon, Crete, 23 - 25 septembre 2005, Heraklion : Crete University Press, 2007
Conferences
- September 1990: International Conference El Greco of Crete, Heraklion
- September 1995: International Conference El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, Rethymno
- September 2005: Διε International Conference θνές συνέδριο El Greco’s Studio, Rethymno
Exhibitions
- El Greco Crete , to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the artist's birth, Heraklion, 1 September - 10 October 1990
- El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum, Athens, 18 September - 31 December 1995
- Alexander the Great in European Art, for "Thessaloniki Cultural Capital of Europe 1997", Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation, Thessaloniki, 22 September 1997 - 11 January 1998
- El Greco-Identidad y Transformacion , Museo Thyssen / Palazzo delle Esposizioni / National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum, Madrid / Rome / Athens, 18 October 1999 - 17 January 2000 (in Athens)
- El Greco’s studio, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, 17 October 2007 – 15 January 2008