“Aegina: The story behind the mythological princess”

Brief history

It was the summer of 2019 when our weloveaegina team was inspired to capture the reasons why we love the island of Aegina in one piece of art. We immediately started looking for the most appropriate artist and the best way to follow to make our dream come true. After many phone calls, contacts, short and long talks, the road led us to the Greek artist Leonidas Giannakopoulos.

Leonidas Giannakopoulos

Leonidas’ CV is really impressive! After he got his degree in Fine Arts in Athens, he has participated in dozens of personal and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. His painting style goes beyond the ordinary…

We had a wonderfully smooth collaboration. Our style and aesthetics matched perfectly.

Elina Argyri – Owner of We Love Aegina

The idea behind

The idea and concept was inspired by weloveaegina team. Through numbers of emails and long discussions about the island, its symbols and the reasons why we love it, a good foundation was built on which Leonidas based his unique style blent with the necessary “artist” freedom. Our first contact with the piece of art was absolutely thrilling…

Our dream had come to life, we saw it there in front of us, it all seemed so unreal… Our Aegina and the reasons why we love it, depicted in a fantastic painting, already receiving the people’s recognition and applause.

A few words about the project

The artwork portrays the island of Aegina in a sum of its most characteristic symbols.

The central figure is the nymph Aegina*, the most beautiful daughter – of the twenty – of the river god Asopos and Metopi. Beautiful Aegina wears the glorious Temple of Aphaia, one of the island’s emblems, as a crown in her hair, while her ear adorns a bouquet of ripe Aegean pistachios, the golden product of Aegina. She wears a necklace with the first silver Greek coin minted in Aegina in the 7th century BC, the “Chelone” (Turtle), an indication of the important role played by our island since antiquity.

The colors that frame the landscape, blue and white, symbolize the sea but also the time of the day when you can’t tell if it’s actually near sunset or dawn. The cannon in her hair, the old-style warship and the iconic Tower of Markellos praise her great and glorious history, while the lighthouse symbolizes her port that has been welcoming the world for thousands of years, still waiting to warmly welcome the next generations of visitors.

 
An artwork by Leonidas Giannakopoulos – leonidasgiannakopoulos.gr

An initiative and production by weloveaegina.com

*According to mythology, when Zeus saw her, he fell madly in love with her and wanted to take her with him. In fact, in order to be alone with her, he took her to this uninhabited, by then, island. The two of them had a son, Aeacus, who became the first king of the island of Aegina and the ancestor of the Ajax family. Aeacus stood out as the virtuous king who always took care of the administration of justice. In mythology, Aegina is even mentioned as the homeland of Thessaly, while the myths about the island were spread by the hymns of Pindar and the epics of Homer.

We Love Aegina Team

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