Page 58 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
clear sky has approximately three hours before the sunrise. It seems that Kallierges con- sciously aspired to convey a very particular kind of a dimmed glow, or should we say, a glow which is continuously in the process of becoming. To a certain extent the dream- like effect of this glow can be related to El Greco’s work entitled Agony in the Garden shown in images 43 and 44.
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The frescoes of the Monastery of Chilandar on Mount Athos, which have been com- pleted between 1318 and 1321, are some of the finest of the Palaiologan period. Unfortu- nately, they have been painted over in 1803 and one can now only see some of the sec- tions of the original decoration. Tsigaridas believes that the original frescoes in Chilandar have close iconographical and stylistic connections to those in the church of St Nicholas Orphanos in Thessaloniki.42 Other scholars, such as Bošković (1959) and Miljković-Pepek (1967), have associated the frescoes at Chilandar with Mihail Astrapas and Eutychios,43 while Vojislav Djurić is of the opinion that the main painter at Chilandar might have been George Kallierges, whose work we addressed previously.44 None of these specula- tions can be entirely rejected or confirmed, and until the frescoes at Chilandar are cleaned, the only thing that can be said with absolute certainty about their authors is that they were among the best painters of their period and that they were trained in or had close ties with the Thessaloniki ateliers. It is also possible, in our view, that Mihail Astrapas, Eutychios, and George Kallierges worked together in Chilandar; however, this too is only a speculation.
The processional icon of the Virgin Abramiotisa, kept in the treasury of Chilandar, dates to 1345 and is a particularly clear example of the tendency towards abstraction being nurtured in the decades that followed the achievements of the artists such as Mi- hail Astrapas, Eutychios, and George Kallierges. As seen in images 51 and 53, a spiral expansion of the depicted forms can be detected in the way the contours of the Virgin and those of the child are rendered. It is as if while depicting Christ as a child, the paint- er simultaneously had in mind the creation of the World and the first words from St
42 Ευθύμιος Ν. Τσιγαρίδας, Τοιχογραφίες της περιόδου των Παλαιολόγων σε ναούς της Μακεδονίας (Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδόσεις Πουρναρά, 1999), 27–29. Note: Certain scholars of the 19th century have wrongly attributed the frescoes of Chilandar to ‘Manuel Panselinos.’
43 In relation to these opinions see: Ευθύμιος Ν. Τσιγαρίδας, Τοιχογραφίες της περιόδου των Παλαιολόγων σε ναούς της Μακεδονίας (Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδόσεις Πουρναρά, 1999), 27.
44 Vojislav Djurić, Vizantijske Freske u Jugoslaviji. Drugo izdanje (Beograd: Jugoslavija, 1975), 52. 56