7. Michael Damaskinos

the decapitation of St Paraskevi

Michael Damaskinos was one of the greatest iconographers /painters of Crete in the post Byzantine times. The value of Damaskinos lies in the fact that he could apply equally succesfully both  the "maniera greca" -byzantine icongraphic style- and the "maniera latina"- the italian Renaissance/mannerist style. The mixing of these two styles produced an hybrid that is occasionally called Cretan-Venetian style on the ground that Crete was under the Venetian rule then and Venetian art was a major influence for the Cretan painters. His works are often complex compositions , characterized by passionate gestures and action - late Renaissance and Mannerism  influence, the saints who  are  serene and patient-characteristic of byzantine iconographic standards, background and perspective, rich red colours in the tunics. The sanquir of the faces of

St Sergius and St Vachus

the saints is brown conforming with the Cretan school of iconography. A characteristic sample of his hybridic style is the decapitation of Saint Paraskevi. His pallette follows the rules of "tetrachromia"-the use of 4 basic colours (white, black, yellow ochre and red ochre that can produce the rest of the colours) according to the Greek tradition, but at the same time he applies the "chiaroscuro" - the contrast between dark and light- according to the Renaissance principles. In some cases he also uses the "cangiante" technique -use of a different colour instead of the lighter tone of the background colour, a Renaissance technique also.

Nativity

It wouldn't be an exaggeration that Damaskinos was the meeting point of the two styles (Byzantine and Italian) that produced the modern greek painting for the centuries to come. His style influenced both the secular and the religious Art of Greece. Thus the Nazarene style in orthodox iconography (the one identified by the many western elements) was accepted even by the iconographic workshops of the Mount Athos, the spiritual centre of Orthodoxy, and other workshops scattered in the wider Greek territory (in Chionades - a village in Epirus, Galatista and Chalastra -villages  in the outskirts of Thessaloniki).

Joshua Tree