Nicholas Gysis

Gysis' portraiture would veer into the spheres of religion and allegory in works such as Mother and Child, in which an interpretation of the figures as the Virgin Mary and Christ child is encouraged by similarities to the works of High Renaissance artists like Raphael (fig. 1). Gysis' mother is depicted in a realistic manner, holding her struggling child tightly. The child lacks the beatific adult serenity seen in Renaissance representations of the Christ child; instead she shies away from the viewer. Gysis prevents the theme from exuding purely iconographic qualities and imbues it with emotive content, as well as a spontaneity and modernity. Though the background landscape framing the subjects is Renaissance-inspired, the mother figure dominates the composition, and Gysis' rich palette as well as the naturalistic portrayal of the mother and child illustrate the dichotomy between strict academicism and naturalism often seen in the artist's oeuvre. Gysis would create an idealised feminine type with Mediterranean characteristics (fig. 2) that would express fortitude in the face of a history marked by the struggle for independence and need for Greek autonomy. 

Gysis trained under Karl von Piloty, and was initiated into the artistic life of Munich by Nikiforos Lytras; through him Gysis would join the ranks of the Munich School and become a highly respected artist of international renown. Though Gysis' artistic education was German, and his work rooted in the formal doctrines of Academicism, he was never constrained by the conservatism and overblown aspects of the latter. Though Gysis occupies an important position in both the history of Greek art and that of Nineteenth Century German art, he created genre scenes imbued with a powerful sense of narrative, and naturalistic allegorical and religious-themed works that showed his true calibre. 

FIG. 1: Raphael, Madonna and Child, circa 1503 © Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
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FIG. 2: Nicholas Gysis, Young Woman, National Gallery and Alexander Soutzos Museum, Athens
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