From the 18th century, painter-travellers showed particular interest in the depiction of Cypriot landscapes and landmarks, as well as in the painterly rendition of the island’s ancient and medieval monuments, using principally the artistic medium of watercolour. This tendency was reinforced with the arrival of the British on the island in 1878. Watercolours proved ideal for painting from nature. Landscape artists could easily carry their materials. Furthermore, the diluted colours dried immediately and so were amenable to subsequent layers. Driven by the excitement of discovering new, different, even – to their eyes – ‘exotic’ places, they portrayed their subject matter with a romantic slant, accentuating its picturesque quality or, in some cases, focusing their interest on precise description, primarily of archaeological sites.

First among the Cypriot artists to adopt the traveller’s gaze of foreign artists was Ioannis Kissonerghis, painting many of the ancient, medieval and later monuments of Cyprus. The A. G. Leventis Gallery Collection includes four such characteristic landscapes (AGLG. 496-499). All four are seen from a distance, in order to underscore their panoramic viewing. 

Kissonerghis painted this Orthodox monastery of the 12th century in the same panoramic way as he did the aforementioned historical monuments. By rendering all the details that make up the buildings’ architectural physiognomy, as well as that of the tree-covered mountain region, he gave, through his studied management of the light, the atmospheric character of the natural space of Cyprus.