Chatzidakis, Nano: Icons of the Cretan School

The publication, accompanying the under the same title exhibition, through the scientifically documented images of the "Cretan School", highlights both the quality and the aesthetic value of the great Byzantine tradition in the later phase of its creative breathing and, on the other hand, it reveals the ongoing processes that will gradually bring in the great changes, through the strengthening of western patterns and influences. The presence of the political, artistic and spiritual center of Constantinople until 1453, as well as the Venetian domination of the island of Crete from 1204, gradually lead to the assembling of various stimuli and patterns that will shape the explosive phenomenon of the so-called "Cretan Renaissance". Travelling to the world of images is a multiple indicator of the sequence of these changes.