Theodoros Vryzakis

Exodos Messologiou ( The Failure of Mesolongi ), 1855, oil on canvas, 169 × 127 cm, National Gallery (Athens) , inventory no. P.5446

Theodoros Philippos Vryzakis (Greek: Θεόδωρος Βρυζάκης ; * October 19, 1814 in Thebes ; † December 6, 1878 in Munich ) was a Greek painter. He is considered one of the most important painters in Greece and counts as the founder of the Munich School of Greek painting.

Biography and works

As a child, Vryzakis saw the beginning of the Greek War of Liberation in 1821. During this war, when Vryzakis was seven years old, his father Petros was hanged by the Turks. His mother managed to escape into the mountains and forests with him. At the age of 18 he emigrated to Munich at the suggestion of a German philologist. He lived there until his death.

In Munich he began to work with painting, almost exclusively depicting themes from the Greek War of Liberation. In 1844 the Greek community in Munich awarded him a scholarship to study painting. In the same year he was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Some of the most outstanding artists in the field of the representation of philhellenic themes became his teachers and later his friends: Karl Wilhelm von Heideck , Peter von Hess , Heinrich von Mayer and others.

Between 1845 and 1855 Vryzakis went on numerous study trips through Europe. With his work The Failure of Messolongion he took part in the Paris World's Fair in 1855 . This painting is probably his best known work. It deals with the breakthrough of Greek freedom fighters with their wives and children through the Turkish siege ring during the siege of the city of Messolongion by the Turkish army. Vryzakis made two copies of this work. The original picture and its first copy were destroyed in a fire in Messolongion in 1929. The second copy is in the National Gallery of Greece. Numerous lithographs of the original picture had also been in circulation since 1856.

In 1861 Vryzakis traveled from Manchester to England on behalf of the Greek community . There he decorated the Greek Orthodox Church Evangelismou with murals . This work lasted until 1863.

Four years later he took part in an art exhibition in Leipzig with four of his paintings. These are the works The Failure of Messolongion , Giorgakis Olympios , a painting of a Greek freedom fighter, and two other paintings related to the War of Liberation of 1821, the works Lord Byron in Messolongion and The Oath in the Church of Saint Laura .

Vryzakis died in 1878 and was buried in Munich. In his will, he bequeathed all the works of art in his studio to the University of Athens and the amount of 760 marks to the Greek Orthodox parish of the Salvatorkirche in Munich for the restoration of the roof of the church of the same name.

Vryzaki's works are considered prime examples of the painting of the so-called Munich School. During Vryzaki's lifetime there was a high demand for his works as documentation of the Greek War of Independence. Some of his works became known to a wide audience thanks to lithographs and other types of reproduction. Critics accused him of placing too little emphasis on the expressions of the faces of the people portrayed in his paintings.

Web links

Commons : Theodoros Vrzyzakis  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files