Supervisors info:
Δημήτρης Παυλόπουλος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Ευθυμία Μαυρομιχάλη, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Βαγγέλης Καραμανωλάκης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
Funerary sculpture is an indispensable part of modern greek art, a field of vigorous activity of every renown sculptor of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century in Greece. The purpose of this essay has been the study of the important, however unknown cemetery of Anastasis, in Piraeus, Athens. Although the cemetery had been in use from 1907 until 1997, it was deemed appropriate to place the beginning of the period of study in 1849, when the oldest surviving work of art was created, moved there from its older place, the lost today cemetery of St. Dionysios. As a final point the year 1940 was chosen, the landmark of transition to the fundamentally different post-war world.
Following the establishment of the period, the works of the cemetery, including the ones of the protestant and catholic departments, were photographed and basic information about them was recorded. The final choice of the monuments presented was realised in reference with the type and time of their creation, in order for a complete image of this “outdoors museum” to be presented to the reader. Measurements of their dimensions were taken, their basic form described and artistic qualities analysed.
The extrapolated data was used in a comparison of the funerary art of Piraeus with that of Athens and rest of Greece, and in the formation of general conclusions, regarding the typological evolution during the decades, from the middle of the 19th century to 1940. It seems that the cemetery of Anastasis is in line with the other cemeteries of the country. Almost every known type of funerary monument appears and common practices of modern greek funerary sculpture, as the reproduction of whole monuments or the creation of portraits and busts according to photographs of the dead are present here also. Finally, the typologic evolution follows the already observed in other cemeteries scheme of the transition from representation to abstraction. The pompous and expensive works of neoclassicism and academic romanticism give their place to artistic expression of an increasingly lower calibre, more and more neutral, with few exceptions serving as proof of the general rule. As it is obvious in the cemetery of Anastasis, at the dawn of the post-war era in Greece the return of the funerary monument to its original role has been completed, with art being confined in a secondary, decorative role or absent completely.
Keywords:
funerary Art, modern greek sculpture, Piraeus, Anastasis
