Sailing ship

Constantinos Volanakis is among the great Greek painters of the nineteenth century. He too was a pupil of Von Piloty, and shaped his art within the context of the School of Munich. After graduation, he remained in the Bavarian capital until 1883, when he returned to Greece and taught at the School of Fine Arts. He engaged almost exclusively in seascapes. His works are marked by the breadth of his thought on various problems, both in his meticulous observation of the sea and in his detailed rendering of vessels, harbours, and coastlines. Free studies with an impressionistic approach and a genuine apprehension of the outdoor world alternate with tightly structured and austere depictions which follow Dutch models. His systematic involvement with the sea resulted in his being described as the father of Greek seascape. Volanakis's connection with the city of Volos and with Mount Pelion is well known from his biographies. The commercial firm in Trieste where he worked as an accountant from 1856 belonged to Georgios Afentoulis, who came from Zagora on Pelion, and the latter's niece Phani married Volanakis in 1875.