EPHORATE OF ANTIQUITIES OF HERAKLION
Digital Interactive Educational and Promotional Services for the Museum of St. Catherine in Heraklion
THEMATIC SECTIONS
Icon painting in Crete
The adoption of the wooden iconostasis, which replaced the byzantine
marble templon, favored the production of icons around the end of the 14th c.
The new artistic
air brought to Crete by the Constantinopolitan artists that immigrated to
Candia and the influence of the Western art, which was favored by the Venetian
presence in the island, the trade and the growth of a rich and well educated bourgeoisie,
which supported the Fine Arts, helped the emergence of great painters such as
Angelos Akotantos, Andreas Rizzo, Theophanes, Michael Damaskenos and Dominikos
Theotokopoulos (El Greco) as well as the creation of a specific artistic
language in the icon-painting, which was described under the term “Cretan
School of Painting”.