Athens School of Fine Arts 5.55

The Athens School of Fine Arts, is Greece's premier Art school whose main objective is to develop the artistic talents of its students.HistoryThe Athens School of Fine Arts was established on 12 January 1837, known as the School for the Arts. In the beginning the School of Arts included three departments: the Crafts' School (part-time school), Industrial Crafts' School (full-time school) and Fine Arts School (full-time higher education).The third department was the real ancestor of today’s School of Fine Arts and began to function as a daily school in 1840. In this department subjects like painting, sculpture, architecture, lithography, woodcut, geometry and cartography were taught. The same year Duchess of Plaisance who lived in Greece contributed in upgrading the school. She enriched the school's program with new types of painting lessons and called the French painter Bonirote (one of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's students) in order to teach oil painting courses. Bonirote was a teacher there until 1843.In 1843 with royal decree School of Fine Arts was promoted in a five-year study Higher Education School. Director of the School was the famous architect Lissandros Kautantzoglou. During the period 1844–1862 the studies' program was influenced by Europe's Academies of Fine Arts which taught neoclassicism. Some of the great students of this period finally became teachers in the school. Some of them are Nikiphoros Lytras and Nicholaos Gysis. In 1872, after a donation of George Averoff, a new building in Patission Avenue road was constructed that was later named National Technical University of Athens.