1.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
2.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
Greek academic art of the 19th century
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The creation of romantic art in Greece can be explained mainly due to the particular relationships that were created between recently liberated Greece and Bavaria during King Ottos years. In this period the Greek state was encouraging young artists to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and in particular study painting. In addition, after centuries of Ottoman rule, few opportunities existed for young artist in Greece itself, immediately after independence, so studying abroad was imperative for them. Munich, was an important international center for the arts and is the place where the majority of Greek artists of the 19th century would choose to study and a minority would go to Paris. Both academic and personal bonds developed between early Greek painters and Munich artistry, giving birth to the Greek Munich School of painting. Many of these young artists later returned to Greece to teach at the Polytechnic School and later Athens School of Fine Arts, some of them, like Nikolaus Gysis, chose to remain in Munich, the so-called Athens on the Isar. The works of the Munich school painters are characterised by an expert. scenes were depicted in a pompous and theatrical way, although not lacking in emotional tension. Munich School painters were specialised on portraiture, landscape painting and still life, artists belonging to the Munich School include the first painters of free Greece, such as Theodoros Vryzakis and Dionysios Tsokos. Even more dramatic in their depictions were the later Konstantinos Volanakis and Ioannis Altamouras, in his mature career Roilos went beyond the principles of the Munich School and introduced impressionism into Greek painting. Gysis stayed at the Academy in Germany while the others have returned to teach at the Athens School of Fine Arts and their teaching and artistry have marked the 19th-century artistic era in Greece. Nikiphoros Lytras is considered the pope of Greek painting and the major iconographer of Greek life during the 19th century, paintings such as The milkman or The awaiting consist reference points in Greek Art. Gysis worked mainly on ethography while at the maturity of his career he shifted towards the iconography of visions, allegories, iacovidis paintings were mainly portraiture and depiction of children scenes. The latter was the founder and first curator of the National Gallery of Greece in Athens, other painters include Epameinondas Thomopoulos, Ioannis Koutsis, Stylianos Miliadis, Nikolaos Vokos, Ioannis Zacharias and Polychronis Lembesis. Influences of academic realism can also be seen in the work of many Greek artists such as Spyridon Vikatos, Nikolaos Davis, Thalia Flora-Karavia, Ioannis Doukas and Ektor Doukas. Art in modern Greece National Gallery of Athens Greek Art National Gallery of Athens The Emergence of Modern Greek Painting, 1830-1930 From the Bank of Greece collection
5.
Tinos
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Tinos is a Greek island situated in the Aegean Sea. It is located in the Cyclades archipelago, in antiquity, Tinos was also known as Ophiussa and Hydroessa. The closest islands are Andros, Delos, and Mykonos and it has a land area of 194.464 square kilometres and a 2011 census population of 8,636 inhabitants. This is perhaps the most notable and still active yearly pilgrimage in the region of the eastern Mediterranean, many pilgrims make their way the 800 metres from the ferry wharf to the church on their hands and knees as sign of devotion. It was ruled by Venice until 1715, when Tinos was captured by the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans held Tinos until 1821 when the inhabitants joined in the Greek War of Independence. The tumult of the period gave rise to an increase in piracy in the region, in 1825 HMS Cambrian was the lead vessel of a small squadron in anti-piracy operations in the Archipelago, at Alexandria, and around the coasts of Syria. On 27 July 1826, Cambrians boats captured a pirate bombard, five pirates were killed and several wounded. The date of 15 August also commemorates the 1940 sinking in Tinoss harbour of the Greek cruiser Elli, during peacetime, while she rode at anchor, the Elli was participating in the celebrations of the Feast of the Dormition. One of the three torpedoes fired hit the Elli under the one operating boiler and she caught fire and sank, nine petty officers and sailors were killed and 24 were wounded. The same submarine attempted to torpedo the passenger ships M/V Elsi and this attempt failed and the torpedoes only damaged a section of the ports wharf. From the shores of Panormos and Kolimbithra on the North Shore to Kionia, Agios Yannis O Portos, Tsiknias is the highest mountain on the island at 750 metres and hides the village of Livada. The mountain of Exobourgo is quite distinct, and unlike its more rounded Cycladic neighbors, has an appearance that would be more at home in the Alps. Between Tsiknias and Exobourgo lies the plain of Falatados. This area is unique on the island as its flat terrain is rare on the island. This made it a candidate for a proposed airport on the island. The Meltemi winds and concerns of local villagers of the towns of Falatados, the area around Volax is a surreal and very unusual landscape with giant boulders some the size of multi-storey buildings. The village of Volax lies at the center of this landscape, to the west, the mountains surrounding Pyrgos are full of some of the most beautiful green marble in Greece. All around the island of Tinos, the islanders have made the most unusual things out of stone, the hills are all terraced with stone walls and every village is connected to its nearest neighbors by stone walkways set between a parallel set of stone walls
6.
Athens School of Fine Arts
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The Athens School of Fine Arts, is Greeces premier Art school whose main objective is to develop the artistic talents of its students. The Athens School of Fine Arts was established on 12 January 1837, in the beginning the School of Arts included three departments, the Crafts School, Industrial Crafts School and Fine Arts School. The third department was the ancestor of today’s School of Fine Arts. In this department subjects like painting, sculpture, architecture, lithography, woodcut, geometry, the same year Duchess of Plaisance who lived in Greece contributed in upgrading the school. She enriched the schools program with new types of painting lessons, Bonirote was a teacher there until 1843. In 1843 with royal decree School of Fine Arts was promoted in a five-year study Higher Education School, Director of the School was the famous architect Lissandros Kautantzoglou. During the period 1844–1862 the studies program was influenced by Europes Academies of Fine Arts which taught neoclassicism, some of the great students of this period finally became teachers in the school. Some of them are Nikiphoros Lytras and Nicholaos Gysis, in 1872, after a donation of George Averoff, a new building in Patission Avenue road was constructed that was later named National Technical University of Athens. In 1910 the faculty acquired the independence from the named National Technical University, the same year the first for women were accepted to the School of Fine Arts. In 1923, the new Director, Nikolaos Lytras, reorganized the workshops to them more independence. In 1930, Education Minister Georgios Papandreou completely revamped and upgraded the old school, in 1929 Konstantinos Parthenis started teaching in the school. His lessons were mostly about the analysis of perception and the plastic transformation of the incoming visual information. Many other famous artists were occupied in Athens School of Fine Arts, the sculptor Costas Dimitriadis, the engraver Yannis Kefallinos, an external evaluation of all academic departments in Greek universities will be conducted by the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency in the following years
7.
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
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The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, the Academy of Fine Arts was founded 1808 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in Munich as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The Munich School refers to a group of painters who worked in Munich or were trained at the Academy between 1850 and 1918, the paintings are characterized by a naturalistic style and dark chiaroscuro. Typical painting subjects included landscape, portraits, genre, still-life, from 1900 to 1918 the academys director was Ferdinand Freiherr von Miller. In 1946, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts was merged with the School of arts and crafts, in 1953 its name was changed to the current Academy of Fine Arts. The large 19th-century Renaissance Revival style building complex, designed by Gottfried Neureuther, was completed in 1886 and it has housed the Academy since then. A new Deconstructivist style expansion, designed by the architectural firm Coop Himmelbau as an extension from the building, was completed in 2005
8.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
9.
Munich School
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Munich School is the name given to a group of painters who worked in Munich or were trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich between 1850 and 1918. In the second half of the 19th century the Academy became one of the most important institutions in Europe for training artists and attracted students from across Europe, Munich was an important center of painting and visual art in the period between 1850 and 1914. Pilotys approach to painting was influenced by the French academician Paul Delaroche, and by the painterly colorism of Rubens. Besides Piloty, other teachers at the Academy were Wilhelm von Diez, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Arthur von Ramberg. and Nikolaos Gyzis. The last generation of students of the Munich School included nearly all the figures of the German avantgarde, such as Lovis Corinth, Ernst Oppler, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee. There were notable schools of Munich-trained painters active outside of Germany, the formative influence of teachers and examples of the Munich School shaped the academic naturalism in many European countries, e. g. the Greek academic art of the 19th century. Due to the affinity between Bavaria and Greece—Prince Otto I was from 1832 to 1862 the first King of Greece—many Greek artists were trained in Munich. The Munich School in Greek art is the most important artistic movement of Greek Art in the 19th century with strong influences from the Academy of Munich. Among the leading artists of this school were Konstantinos Volanakis, Georgios Roilos, Nikolaos Gyzis, Polychronis Lembesis, Nikolaos Vokos, Nikiphoros Lytras, most of the artists of the Hungarian Nagybanya school of art were educated in Munich. Poland was represented by, among others, Józef Chełmoński, Władysław Czachórski, Julian Fałat, Aleksander Gierymski, Maksymilian Gierymski, the Swedish painters Johan Christoffer Boklund and Johan Fredrik Höckert studied in Munich. Frank Duveneck and William Merritt Chase were the most prominent exemplars of the Munich School in American art, other American artists who studied in Munich include John Henry Twachtman and Walter Shirlaw. The Munich school is characterized by a style and dark chiaroscuro. Typical subjects are landscape, portraits, genre, still-life, brooklyn Museum, Triumph of Realism, an exhibition of European and American realist paintings, 1850–1910. Greenville County Museum of Art, and Martha R. Severens, Greenville County Museum of Art, The Southern Collection. New York, Hudson Hills Press, in association with the Greenville County Museum of Art,1995, ISBN 1-55595-102-3 Norman, Geraldine, Nineteenth-Century Painters and Painting, A Dictionary. Berkeley, University of California Press,1978, ISBN 0-520-03328-0 Münchner Schule Münchner Schule bei Ketterer
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