Cretan School - 16th Century

16th Century

About 120 artists can be documented working in Candia (the Venetian name of Chandax, present day Herakleion), in the period 1453–1526, and they had organized a Schuola di San Luca painter's guild, based on the Italian model. The blending of the Eastern and the Western traditions, and a relaxed interchange between Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic rites led to the "Cretan Renaissance", a golden period for the arts on the island, where both literature and painting flourished. Some of these painters chose to continue the Byzantine tradition of Constantinople, while others were influenced by the masters of the Venetian Renaissance, such as Giovanni Bellini and Titian. Later Veronese was to be a particular influence. Works by these masters or copies were in monasteries and churches of the island, while examples of Early Netherlandish painting decorated the Catholic churches of Candia or were to be found in the private collections of rich Venetians and Greeks. In particular, Candia contained a large Franciscan church and a large Orthodox monastery, a daughter-house of St. Catherine's, Sinai, both of which had strong collections from their respective traditions.

Contemporary documents refer to two styles in painting: the maniera greca (alla greca, in line with the Byzantine idiom) and the maniera Latina (alla Latina, in accordance with Western techniques), which artists knew and utilized according to the circumstances; as a result some kind of "eclecticism" appeared. Indeed, sometimes both styles could be found in the same icon, the one right next to the other. The fame of the most prominent Cretan painters spread throughout Greece, the Mediterranean and Europe. After the beginning of the 16th century the Cretan artists once again had more commissions and their works were avidly sought, since they had started to use new motives and to adjust their iconography to the new trends of their era. To an extent quantity was probably replaced by quality compared with the previous century.