Page 233 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Reconstruction of the small Saint Nicholas Church, which existed within the Holy Archangels Monastery
was architecturally decorated with a series of small arcades connected in a unique fashion with now destroyed frescos. The Church of St. Nicholas was considerably smaller in size (13.2 meters x 7 meters) but it was built and decorated in the same way. it was a single-nave edifice with an apse in the east and an open narthex on the west side. The dome rested on the wall to the west and on two pillars in the sanc-
tuary. There was also another dome above the narthex.
Sculpture and iconography
Both churches were decorated by lavish sculpture. So far around 1,700 sculpture fragments (angels and saints, hu- man heads, animal and floral ornaments) have been found which once decorated the two imperial shrines.
The transitional period of Serbian medieval art is also apparent in the sculptures of Holy archangels. even though its iconography and program are not known, in many of the preserved fragments one can easily discern stylistic characteristics closely linked with sculpture which was transmitted from the coastal workshops of Cattaro, Cavtat, and Dubrovnik to the Serbian interior and the architecture of Studenica, Banjska and Dečani Monasteries. The motifs are the same; the manner of stone cutting is similar; novel- ties appear in two cases only. The first is if a rather dam- aged head figure is accepted as the likeness of emperor Dušan, which would make it the first and only likeness in Serbian medieval sculpture. The other novelty is more for- mal, sculptural and expressed in some of the fragments with floral ornamentation in which sculptural workman- ship is replaced by bas-relief and the stylization is so strong that the ornament is transformed into the geometric dou-
Remnants of the Saint Nicholas church,
Holy archangels Monastery, Prizren
ble-border which would later be developed in the sculp- ture of the Morava school. The same process observed in architecture is true with regard to sculpture and we can say that Holy archangels concludes one great sculptural and spatial tradition, while at the same time announcing a new art form.
Preserved fresco fragments in the Church of Holy arch- angels bear witness to the beauty and monumental charac- ter of the frescos. The Church of St. Nicholas was also paint- ed with frescos as evidenced by the fresco fragments in the niche of the south wall by the altar, as well as by fragments on the north wall of the parvis.
Fresco fragments with representations of heads,
The Holy archangels, Prizren, ca. 1351
The Holy archangels
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