Yannoulis Chalepas ( el, Γιαννούλης Χαλεπάς, August 14, 1851 – September 15, 1938) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
and a significant figure of
Modern Greek art
Modern Greek art is art from the period between the emergence of the new independent Greek state and the 20th century.
As Mainland Greece was under Ottoman rule for all four centuries, it was not a part of the Renaissance and artistic movements th ...
.
Life
Chalepas was born in Pyrgos, on the island of
Tinos
Tinos ( el, Τήνος ) is a Greek island situated in the Aegean Sea. It is located in the Cyclades archipelago. The closest islands are Andros, Delos, and Mykonos. It has a land area of and a 2011 census population of 8,636 inhabitants.
Tinos ...
in 1851, from a family of marble hewers. From 1869 to 1872, he studied at the
School of Arts in Athens, under Neoclassical sculptor
Leonidas Drossis. In 1873, he left for
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, under a scholarship of the Panhellenic Holy Foundation of the
Evangelistria of Tinos, to continue his studies at the
Munich Academy of Fine Arts
The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...
under the Neoclassical sculptor
Max von Widnmann
Max von Widnmann (ennobled as Maximilian Ritter von Widnmann; 16 October 1812 – 3 March 1895)Th-B, "Widnmann, Max von, sculptor", ''Dictionary of German Biography'', ed. Walther Killy and Rudolf Vierhaus, with Dietrich von Engelhardt ''et al'' ...
.
His scholarship was intercepted to be given to another student.
He returned to Athens in 1876, opened a workshop and began working individually.
Mental illness
In 1878, Chalepas suffered a
nervous breakdown
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
. He began destroying some of his sculptures and made several
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
attempts. His condition worsened and from July 11, 1888 to June 6, 1902, he was committed to the Mental Hospital of
Corfu
Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...
. In 1901 his father died and the next year his mother went to Corfu and took Chalepas to Tinos. After his return, Chalepas lived under his mother's strict supervision, who blamed sculpture for her son's illness and prevented him from sculpting, destroying everything he created.
Rehabilitation
His mother died in 1916 and Chalepas began to work again with insufficient means, after a long time of inactivity. He gained attention and made contacts with intellectual circles in Athens. Also, many eminent personalities of the arts, such as
Thomas Thomopoulos
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the ...
, member of the
Academy of Athens, and
Zacharias Papantoniou
Zacharias Papantoniou ( el, Ζαχαρίας Παπαντωνίου, ''Zacharias Papandoniou'') was a Greek writer. He was born in Karpenissi of Evrytania in February 1877 and died in Athens in 1940. He spent the first years of his life in Granit ...
, director of the
National Gallery of Athens
The National Gallery ( el, Εθνική Πινακοθήκη, ''Ethniki Pinakothiki'') is an art museum located on Vasilissis Sofias avenue in the Pangrati district, Athens, Greece. It is devoted to Greek and European art from the 14th century ...
, visited him in Tinos. In 1925, an exhibition of Chalepas' works was organized by the Academy of Athens, and in 1927 he received the Academy's “Award for Excellence in Arts and Letters”.
In 1930 he moved to Athens and continued working until his death on September 15, 1938.
Art
![Tomb of Sofia Afentaki](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Tomb_of_Sofia_Afentaki.JPG)
The creative production of Chalepas is shared between two periods, the first, from the early years to the start of his mental illness, and the second, called the "post-sanity" period (1918–1938) which is divided into two phases. The first corresponds to the years of rehabilitation in Tinos, from 1918 to 1930, and the second spans the last years of his life, from 1930 to his death in 1938. Chalepas's early work shows the rare maturity of the artist from the very beginning.
Gallery
File:Atenas, Primer Cementerio 03.jpg, Tomb of Sofia Afentaki
File:DSC-0033-First-Cemetery-of-Athens-august-2017.jpg, Tomb of Sofia Afentaki
File:Macedonian Museums-13-Sygxronhs Texnhs Florinas-63.jpg, Head
File:Panormos, Tinos, Greece 2018040916460N01226.jpg, Yannoulis House Museum
File:Yannoulis Halepas sketch.png, Sketch of sculptor
File:Yannoulis-chalepas-medea.jpg, Sketch of sculptor
References
External links
*
Chalepas Yannoulis and photos fro
National Gallery04/10/2018. Retrieved 04/10/2018.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalepas, Yannoulis
1851 births
1938 deaths
Greek sculptors
People from Tinos
Sculptors who committed suicide
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni
Burials at the First Cemetery of Athens
20th-century Greek sculptors
19th-century sculptors
1938 suicides
19th-century Greek sculptors
Suicides in Greece