Page 184 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Gojko Subotić
to determine a sense of the entire decoration, and efforts at foretelling certain meanings and solving messages in all these representations in the belief of respected authorities of iconography and literary sources, are doomed to failure.
The southern, lesser portal has in a lunette a relief of the Baptism, connected with the appropriate rites on this side. The composition itself, both iconographically and ar- tistically concentrated only on the main participants makes a true apposition to the representations on this theme in the wall-paintings, with a great number of figures, details and dynamic action.
On the northern side, the field above the entrance is filled with a geometrical carefully carved and balanced cross and full-leaved branches, with a vine rising from its step- like base. in exactly this shape it is, almost regularly, paint- ed on the sides of entrances, where it blocked the entrance of evil powers in the interior of a church. at the same time, it also expressed hope in resurrection, for which reason it was carved on the upper sides of the stone tombs, for in- stance, of the heads of the Serbian Church who lie at rest in Peć.
in the interior, better protected under the roof, the re- liefs on the portal in front of the naos have preserved, among other things, excellent figures of griffins and lions on the upper consoles, with a sharply-cut motif of an acanthus on the archivolts, and at the base a strong lion’s body on which free-standing columns rest. Both one and the other, the personification of evil, hold in their claws animal and hu- man heads.
a special place in the entire relief decoration is taken by excellently proportioned Romanesque three-light windows, with narrow mullions, richly sculpted archivolts, and frames alongside which were free-standing columns and consoles. On the western façade, in the lunette of the three-part win- dow, scene of Saint George killing the dragon is brought into direct connection with the vow which Stefan Dečanski himself gave to this Holy Warrior, calling upon his aid be- fore going into battle of Velbužd. The appropriate opening on the eastern side, in the main apse, has, however, almost the exact likeness as that in the Church of the Theotokos in Studenica. it has already been said that this three-light mul- lioned windows was an example for the stonecutters when
they worked on the reliefs on the façade on the later mau- soleum-type church in Banjska where it found its replica. The sources themselves, in all truth, do not mention that the benefactor of Dečani also attempted to follow the pat- tern of Nemanja’s endowment, but the coincidence with its representative window confirms that also on this occa- sion the stonecutter remembered the church in Studenica and repeated certain of its forms.
at the same time, the interior has a marble iconostasis with relief decorations and a throne on which—the found- ing Charter expressly warns—only the King had the right to sit. also, carefully fashioned marble sarcophagi under which lie the bodies of Stefan Dečanski and his wife Maria Palaeologina in the southwestern part of the naos belong to the same cycle. Sometime later, after rumors of miracles which occurred at the grave and the proclamation of his sainthood, most probably in 1343, the relics of the benefac- tor were moved to a pre-prepared wooden coffin, a mas- terpiece of wood carving, placed in front of the iconostasis itself, south of the royal doors.
The most spacious church in early Serbian architecture also claims the largest assemblage of painted decorations in the world of Byzantine art. On the surfaces of the tall walls, vaultings and arches there are hundreds of scenes and thousands of people in greater and lesser thematic se- quences, in which the Divine Order of the universe is pre- sented to the faithful, the incarnation of the Son is shown, the history of the Christian Church is displayed and her dogma is interpreted. The twenty cycles of which the Cal- endar had 365 illustrated days, and Genesis 46 scenes, as well as hundreds of individual figures and busts, contain often rare and sometimes unique images.
even though more numerous than in other churches, the scenes in the Dečani church are not in general of small dimensions—its interior was not dissected nor were walls divided as they were in Gračanica Monastery, so the avail- able surfaces also allowed the representation of monumen- tal scenes. On the other hand, neither were all the scenes “readable,” especially the Menologion, whose individual days without designation are difficult to differentiate. The faithful, therefore, were faced with difficulties attempting to understand the language of frescos; along with this, but
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The Founders inscription on the completion of the painting of the church, naos, west wall, Dečani, 1347/48