Greek light, Greek photography

This article investigates indigenous light as an element in the conceptualization of photography as a ‘Greek’ art from the mid-nineteenth to the first decades of the twentieth century. Key moments linking photography, writing through light, with the light of Greece will be discussed: from the mid-nineteenth-century debate about the alleged ‘Greek’ origins of photography to the thematization of light and gazing at the Greek landscape in the writings of Periklis Yannopoulos and, eventually, to interwar photographic projects bringing together contemporary scenery with antique material relics.