“From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Hellenic Art in Adversity, 1453-1830” an exhibition of treasures from the Benaki Museum, opens at the Onassis Cultural Center on December 15, and will examine the evolution of Hellenic art and culture during four centuries of tumultuous change under Venetian and Ottoman occupation.

More than 116 works from all sectors of artistic production – icons, painting, woodcarving, metalwork, embroidery, costumes, jewelry, and pottery – will present a comprehensive visual history of Hellenic culture from the fall of Byzantium in 1453 to the founding of the modern Greek state in 1830.

The Benaki Museum’s collection of Hellenic art and antiquities from the Neolithic Age to the Twentieth Century contains 33,000 rare and exquisite objects. Highlights from this collection, such as wood-carved bed panels, painted chests, publications and a signed icon by El Greco, will make up “From Byzantium to Modern Greece,” which will run until May 6.

The exhibition will be divided into seven sections that explore the historic and socioeconomic context of the period, the spiritual and artistic legacy of the Orthodox Church, the importance of home and decorative arts, the adornment of women, the depictions of Greece by foreign travelers, and the Greek Enlightenment and founding of the modern Greek state.

Beginning in the Fifteenth Century, the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice battled for control of the Greek islands and coastal territories, a struggle that culminated in the partial destruction of the Parthenon in 1687. This infamous attack will be seen in a rare Seventeenth Century watercolor that shows the temple burning after a Venetian bomb hit the Parthenon’s roof, igniting the cache of gunpowder that the Ottoman Turks had stored inside.

In the following two centuries, as powers from the East and West continued to sail the Aegean and Ionian seas, the Greek shipping trade grew, leading to economic development, improved living conditions in the islands and the introduction of Western ideas. These changes will be seen in scenes of nautical life and testimonies of religious beliefs and practices for the protection of seafarers.

The Orthodox Church – which, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, had served as Greece’s main social, cultural and political institution, and had formalized guidelines for artistic production – was the only organization to retain broad cultural significance. While religious art preserved its Byzantine influence, it began to incorporate Eastern and Western elements, as seen in the many examples of rare gold embroidery, jewelry and silverwork in this exhibition. Icons from the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries will reveal the cultural blending of the Venetians, Ottomans and Byzantine Greeks. Chief among these icons is an early work by El Greco.

In the centuries of Ottoman occupation, the home became the main site of artistic expression. This can be seen in the delicately carved stone fanlights and fountainheads, intricately painted wood chests and bed panels, vivid ceramics and ornate embroideries that highlight the cultural sophistication of the Hellenic world. The exhibition will also feature a complete reconstruction of a bedchamber, including a rare bridal bed with an elaborately embroidered silk canopy, sheet, pillows and valance, and a selection of delicate ceramics.

Pendant from Patmos island, first half of the Seventeenth Century, gold pendant in the form of a caravel with enamels and pearls, 14 centimeters high. The Benaki Museum.

The shift toward a more personal aesthetic will be furtherrevealed in paintings and watercolors made by foreign travelers toGreece in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries depicting women’sadornment and attire in cosmopolitan and rural Greece.

The foreign travelers who recorded women’s attire also depicted the Greek landscape, ancient monuments and quaint villages of the Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries. Foreign artists accompanying exploratory or military missions, as well as Europeans on the Grand Tour, recorded the Hellenic landscapes they saw on their travels. The detailed drawings, watercolors, oil paintings and illustrations from travel publications that will be featured in this exhibition depict Greece before the War of Independence as seen through European eyes.

The late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries witnessed the birth of the Greek Enlightenment – an intellectual movement that combined Western liberal thought with a revival of the ancient Hellenic spirit – and the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830. At the same time, Western artists and intellectuals embraced Philhellenism, fueling the neoclassical and Romantic movements in Europe and the United States. This final section will feature publications reflecting the interests of the age; Romantic paintings inspired by the Greek struggle; weapons of Greek freedom fighters; and portraits of important European and Greek cultural figures, such as Lord Byron and Rigas Feraios, a major figure of the Greek Enlightenment.

The Onassis Cultural Center is in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue (entrance on 51st and 52nd Streets). For information, 212-486-4448 or www.onassisusa.org.