Kontoglou was born in Asia Minor and when he came to Greece, he brought along the ideology of a whole civilization, that was about to be forgotten on the Greek mainland. The Byzantine hagiography was in recession after the Bavarian influence, and the Greek painters experimented with it only sporadically and without any particular emphasis. Fotis Kontoglou, a talented painter and literary man, was the one to stress the value of the Byzantine tradition and its deep spiritualism.

During his first creative period, he worked towards an incorporation of the byzantine element into the celestial art, by painting worldly subjects in a byzantine manner. Sea-captains, historical figures and landscapes are treated in a byzantine way, capturing the everlasting essence and expressed in the byzantine austere and conventional way. A very good example of this style is a frieze in the Municipal building of the City of Athens. He believed that the frugal expressive elements of the byzantine painting corresponded to abstract European art. Later, Kontoglou returned to a more conservative perception of the byzantine painting, believing that it should be restricted to its hagiographic role. But his initial belief had been incorporated into the Modern Greek art and it is evident in the work of later artists, such as Egonopoulos, Vasiliou and Tsarouhis.

Some of his greatest works are the paintings in the Municipal building of the City of Athens, the paintings in the Kapnikarea church, in the center of Athens, and the church of Zoodohos Pigi in Peania. His work is characterized by the asceticism and spirituality of the portrayed figures and many art historians include him in the surrealistic movement because of the unexpected visual associations that he evokes to the viewer.