Heptanese school

The Heptanese school, also called the Ionian school or Ionian Islands school, was the leading school of Greek post-Byzantine painting from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. It took over that role from the Cretan school after Crete fell to the Ottomans in 1669, and it was based in the Ionian Islands, which were not part of Ottoman Greece. Like the Cretan school it combined Byzantine traditions with growing Western European influence, but it went further: oil painting on canvas replaced egg tempera on panel, perspective became three-dimensional, and secular subjects such as portraits of the bourgeoisie, genre scenes, landscapes and still lifes became common beside religious work. Early figures include Theodore Poulakis, Elias Moskos and Emmanuel Tzanes, and later portrait painters include Nikolaos Koutouzis and Nikolaos Kantounis. After Greek independence the cultural centre moved to Athens and later Heptanese painters turned toward modern Western movements.