Photographs of daily life in Tenos island by Daniel Boissonnas Frédéric

Frédéric Daniel Boissonnas (1858-1946) came from a Swiss family of photographers. He was an enthusiastic trekker, he travelled with the Greek scholar Daniel Baud-Bovy who was a rector in the Geneva school of Fine Arts.

They toured all over Greece, from Epirus to the Peloponnese and from Ithaca to Olympus and Mount Athos as well as Tenos island. Boissonnas and Baud-Bovy along with Greek hunter Christos Caccalos were the first to climb Myticas, the peak of Olympus in August 1913.

Boissonnas pictured Greece in it’s translucid uniqueness bequeathed to it by the light. Thanks to his passion, talent and sensibility, a new perspective on monuments, people and landscapes recalled the harmony that has always existed in this space. Light, landscapes, history and people are united in a unique imprint, which teaches respect for one another, something that just a century later has already been lost. Doric simplicity marks the figures as they stand against the lyrical landscapes, a Doric vigour envelops the monuments whose whiteness glints playfully as the light shines directly above them; everything bathes in Ionic splendour.