Page 268 - Beholding Liberty!

268 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
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Gustav Wilhelm Kraus (1804-1852)
Otto entering Nafplio on the 6th February 1833
coloured lithograph, 34 × 48 cm
signed: Auf Stein gez. von G. Kraus. (bottom left) Gedr. von J. B. Dresely. (bottom right) Kraus (stamp, low centre) inscribed (caption): Einzug Seiner Majestät des Königs Otto zu Nauplia am 6. Februar. 1833. (low centre) Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 408
THE PAINTER AND ENGRAVER Gus- tav Wilhelm Kraus (1804-1852), who specialised in vedute, or city views, was based in Munich since 1824. During the 1830s he produced a series of chromo- lithographs of images inspired by Otto’s departure from Munich and arrival in Greece, which were print- ed by I.B. Dreseli. This one shows the young king on horseback, cheered by the crowd in the streets of Nafplio, the temporary capital of Greece, after he disembarked from the British frigate Magadaskar on February 6, 1833.
The scene of Otto’s arrival in Nafplio has been captured in a number of prints and in an oil painting by Peter von Hess (1835, Neue
II.6.8
Pinakothek, Munich). Whereas the latter is a historical painting which seeks to recreate convincingly the scene at Nafplio, Kraus’ image uses a fair amount of artistic licence but perfectly captures the atmosphere. The young king is shown riding a white horse, accompanied by his retinue and a Greek representative, also on horseback, while the crowd greets the newly arrived king. A fortress, in the background, is a reference to Palamidi; on the left, figures of Greek men and women in traditional dress appear perched on ancient columns and spolia in what is, in effect, an imaginary setting that evokes the ancient Greek heritage of the newly established kingdom.
Giovanni Schranz (1794-1882)
Greeks by the Erechtheion, on the Acropolis of Athens, ca. 1830-40
waterocolour on paper, 16 × 22.5 cm Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 488
GIOVANNI SCHRANZ, a German-born Mal- tese painter, is a member of the artist family of An- ton Schranz (1769-1839), also a painter.
His brother, Joseph (1803 – c 1853) [cat. no I.1.18], was a landscapist who produced many landscapes of Greece and the Orient, where he travelled ex- tensively.
This is an image of the Acropolis, probably produced around 1830-40, with the Parthenon in the back- ground and the Erechtheion on the left. However, rather than focusing on the celebrated ancient mon- uments, the artist instead uses them as a backdrop for the human figures in the foreground. The ram-
shackle structure before which they are depicted strikes an interesting contrast with the monumen- tality of the antiquities, resulting in a picturesque impression of the ruins and the town that the Acrop- olis Hill once hosted side by side with the temples.
During the early years after independence, the Acropolis, once inhabited and used as a fortress by the Ottomans, was recovered by the Greeks, who returned to the war-torn town. Amongst the an- cient monuments for the sake of which they fought, according to Makrygiannis’ famous remark, liberat- ed Greeks now tried to build their own lives, even as they – literally and figuratively – built modern Greece.