Religious
Naturalistic Modern Religious Paintings
Vasilis Bottas is a person with deep faith and an ardent reader of the New Testament. For the painter the rendering of Jesus as expressed in the Byzantine/Orthodox iconography is very flat and sterile. On the contrary, he is much more influenced by the Renaissance style paintings of old traditional western Europe school: he paints naturalistic modern religious paintings, where the faces of Jesus, Virgin Mary and the Saints were more human, obey in less strict rules and are full of emotions.
He is enchanted by the life and story of Jesus and from the prophetic book “Apocalypse”, that he studied. The occult events described from John the Evangelist were all painted, in a work full of drama and awe. “The Apocalypse”, proved to be the most emblematic work of Vasilis, presented in a colossal scale and the work that he considers as his greatest artwork ever. In this work Vasilis gives an unbelievable amount of passion, power and even fear in shocking details that impresses the viewer at first sight: it’s a quintessence of a dramatic, naturalistic modern religious painting.
In addition, his inventory includes artworks with scenes from the New Testament and collection with faces of Jesus. In a specific work (“The Eyes”), full of symbolism and inspiration, Jesus looks at the viewer, having his eyes closed.
The mild and beautiful figures of Jesus and Mary, the respect in the events, the rendering of the solemn atmosphere, drama, glory and awe, can touch every single believer who can see further from traditional orthodox iconography.