Prominent Satements to the Art of Lepanto
Lepanto’s oeuvre transcends
the confines of landscape
painting: his importance
communicates itself more
through the impact of his comprehensive
theory of the world.
His work is part of a whole which
reflects the artist as a polymath
who, besides being a painter, has
published extensively in the field
of German philology and art history
and has, in addition, developed
a potent ecological message.
He started painting at a relatively
mature age; nevertheless, both
thematically and artistically, his
work is characterised by impressive
consistency. His “insistence”
on painting landscapes is for Lepanto
a means of re-evaluating
the natural environment, however,
not with the intention of representing
landscapes
realistically, but through the search
for their soul. With a strictly
considered choice and seemingly
with great ease he arranges romantic
and surreal elements in
his work, having no regard for
realistic reproduction; all that
without going beyond formal
boundaries or subscribing to
total abstraction. Lepanto views
the classic artistic profession of
landscape painting from a different
angle. The motifs he chooses,
the Greek mountains and
valleys, Tuscan and German landscapes,
but also the townscapes
e.g. of Heidelberg where he lives,
are devoid of any idealisation,
though dominated by the aesthetics
of order and harmony. The
creation of a natural space, closely
connected with human
beings, even if they are not depicted,
is one of the intrinsic characteristics
of his art. The
restoration of the connection between
man and the natural environment
is a fundamental
prerequisite of an ecological
consciousness. For the painter
Lepanto, taking the idea further,
this is “ecological art”.
The exhibition hosted by the
Benaki Museum is the result of
fruitful long-term collaboration
between painter and museum.
It displays more than 100 largeformat
works offering the Greek
public a comprehensive and representative
introduction to the
painter’s art.
Finally, we should not omit to
express our grateful acknowledgement
of the valuable contribution
of Lepanto’s fondly remembered
friend, Prof. Papadimitriou
who, as a member of the board of
governors of the Benaki Museum,
was the first to propose the realisation
of this exhibition.
(Constantinos Papachristou
Arthistorian
Benaki Museum)
What has always deeply impressed
me about Wassili Loukopoulos-
Lepanto’s work is the determination
with which, for the past
thirty years, he has single-mindedly
pursued his chosen path. He
has ignored all the fashionable inflationary
trends which, as part of
so-called post-modernism, have attempted
to dominate the art
world. From the very beginning,
Lepanto has perceived it as his mission,
through evoking an intact
harmony between life and nature
in his paintings, to place himself
in the service of the ecological
movement which has changed the
consciousness of so many people.
Consequently, in Germany he is acknowledged
by the Green Party as
their most important art representative.
While he initially found
recognition mainly in Heidelberg,
through his paintings, writings
and postcards he has increasingly
become the figurehead of ecologically
oriented art whose influence
is felt not only throughout
Germany, but all over Europe – in
those places at least where people
have realized that protecting nature
is one of mankind’s major priorities.
(Prof. Jost Hermand
professor of cultural sciences,
Madison, USA, 2011)
Wassili Lepanto (his
artist’s name) is a Greek painter in the diaspora.
He lives and works in Heidelberg,
the famous historic university town in Germany,
an unusual example of an academic
who became a painter through studying
literature and art history and not through
attending a college of art. He is influenced
by drawing, to a great extent by colour, as
well as his innate ability, his creative
graphic imagination and natural talent.
His varied academic studies have providedhim with theoretical knowledge, which
guides him. When put into practice the
artistic result is grounded theoretically
and philosophically.
On the occasion of his retrospective exhibition
in the Benaki Museum Athens
and with the special catalogue accompanying
it, a first attempt is made to approach
his work with the objective of
examining it comprehensively in its historic
dimension, not only partially, as is
frequently the case with art critics. Concentrating
exclusively on Wassili Lepanto’s
landscapes, and his artistic individuality
as a painter, is an interesting challenge but
not without its difficulties, even if one is
familiar with his work.
From his first appearance on the European
art scene to the present day Lepanto’s
work has been a topic of discussion among
the press, art critics, intellectuals and art
historians. He himself has contributed autobiographical
and theoretical texts
which, on the one hand, help the scholar
to uncover the deeper meaning of his
work, on the other hand prevent him from
approaching it with a clear, objective eye.
This fresh attempt to access Lepanto’s
work complements the extensive literature
on the subject2 and collates current
interpretations and trends. In addition it
also seeks to analyse the way in which Lepanto,
the scholar destined for an academic
career, has become a painter who is today
considered the principal representative of
‘ecological art’, has been accepted as such
and has made a name for himself outside
of Germany.
(Dora Markatou, Introduction to the Artist and his Work, 2011)
The Greek Wassili Loukopoulos (Lepanto) has found his
second home in the university town of Heidelberg. He
grew up in Greece, mainly in Athens and he adopted the
name of his father’s home town Nafpaktos (=Lepanto) as
his artistic name. The Greek Lepanto experienced his intellectual
birth in the Athens of the North, as the Romantics
often referred to Heidelberg. Here he read
German Studies, History and Educational Studies, Philosophy
and Art, in order to finally obtain a PhD from the
University of Mannheim, where he wrote his PhD dissertation
on a linguistic-philosophical topic.
Wassili found his way to painting in the 1970’s, because
he saw in art a wider and more important field of work
than in the humanities. The town of Heidelberg, “the
most beautiful one with a rural ambience in the fatherland”;
as the poet Hölderlin put it, was at least partially
responsible for this decision. Even in earlier times like
the baroque, the most sensitive artists have learned here
to appreciate the beauty of nature. In the topography of
Heidelberg Goethe recognized something “ideal” which
could only fully comprehended “if you were familiar
with landscape painting”, as he noted in his diaries from
the journeys to Switzerland from 1797. The opposite is
also true. Lepanto developed his idea of landscape by
dealing with the town.
(Friedrich Strack, Return to the Myth? The Visual Messages
of the Painter Wassili L. Lepanto in: exhibition catalogue
Geneva, Athens, Düsseldorf 1996/97)