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Fresco-Icons
In the middle of the 11th century, icons executed in a fresco technique and depicting important archprists of the church were painted on the walls of the icons and proskomide in the cathedral church St. Sophia in Ohrid. Among these, the best preserved are the half-length portrait of the Patriarchs of Alexandria John and Eustathius and the figures of St. Polycarp and Timothy. The anonymous painter insisted on leaving the impression of these icons having been painted in wood. He especially stresses the plasticity of the material the icons are painted on, bringing out the depth of the treasury with the use of shadows; he also painted the metal hangers and nails with which those “wooden” icons were “hung” on the walls in the church. In many places in Macedonia in this period are cases like this. As an illustration we will mention fresco-icons from the church St. Vraci Cosmas and Damian of Kastoria (9th-11th century) where an anonymous painter paints most of the frescoe-icons, insisting on creating a Icon Gallery “hanging” on special hooks on the church walls. Among the best preserved figures are those of St. Cyrus and St.John. In some miniatures, such a miniature in the Psalter of 1066 in the British Museum, we find the same endeavour to depict icons as being “hooked” and “hanging” on church walls.

In the churches of this and later period, besides frescoes “hung” on walls we can find fresco-icons linked to the iconography of the iconostasis. When discussing the church of St. Sophia in Ohrid, special attention should be drawn to the fresco-icons painted on the columns at the level of the iconostasis. There are two large fresco-icons dedicated to the Mother of God with the infant Jesus in her arms, that on the north column being of the type of the Mother of God of Sorrows.

Fresco-icons cannot be discussed without mention of those painted in the church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi, near Skopje, dating from 1164. Here as in the church of St. Sophia in Ohrid, there are two types of icons those “hung” on the walls and those “framed“ on the columns framing the iconostasis. The icons “hung” on the walls on the church St. Panteleimon, Nerezi, are to be found in the south chapel and in the proskomide, while the frescoes painted on pillars, with rich stucco-work frames form whole together with the iconostasis.
 

Such fresco-icons decorated with rich marble or strucco-work frames are to be found in the church of the Mother of God Kyriotisa in Constantinople, late 11th century, in the church of the Mother of God in Samara in the Peloponnese, late 12th century, and others. When the donors were unable to afford more expensive frames, the painters were obliged to paint frames themselves for these icons, as was the case with the fresco-icons on the north and south walls on either sides of the iconostasis in the church of St. George, Kurbinovo, dating from 1191, or in the church of St. John the Divine at Kaneo in Ohrid, dating from the closing years of the 13th century. It can be assumed with considerable certainty that such fresco-icons were painted on the columns on either sides of the marble iconostasis in the church of the Mother of God Peribleptos (St. Clement’s) in Ohrid in 1295. However, these were destroyed during the iconostallation of the new wooden iconostasis made by the woodcraver Tome and painted by Dico Zograf in the 19th century.

In 1317 the wellknown medieval painters Michael and Eutychios painted fresco-icons from the church St. George in Staro Nagoricane near Kumanovo dedicated to the patron saint of the church, St. George, and to the Mother of God Pelagonitisa on the surfaces created in the iconostasis after the walling up of the intercolumnar spaces. Some years later, they painted the fresco-icon dedicated to St. Nicetas in the church of the same name in the village of Banjani, near Skopje. There are in existance numerous fresco-icons which were painted in the churches of Macedonia from the 11th up to the close in the 15th centuries.

All these fresco-icons indicate that fresco-painting was inextricably linked to easel painting and that icons done in tempera on wood were the products of the same painters or painting workshops. But there are cases where some painters are more closely connected with icon-painting on wood, which may be considered as a more specialized branch in the field of painting If one looks closely at them, there works indicate a tendency towards the more precise modeling which easel painting demands.

A study of development of the medieval icon-painting in Macedonia, especially the icons done in tempera on wood, is made possible by the existance of a number of icons dating from the 11th century. Strating out from them, the oldest icons known to date, we can distinguish four groups on the basis of the time at which they were executed:

    • Icons from the time when Macedonia was under Romaoian rule and to the time when it came under the medieval Serbian state;
    • Icons dating from the period when Macedonia was under medieval Serbian rule;
    • Icons dating from the period up to the close of the 17th century when Macedonia was under the dominance of the Ottoman Turks;
    • Icons dating from the period of the 18th century renaissance and up to the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1912.

The material which has been discovered to date requires such a systematization. The subject of this study is icons from the three groups, i.e. from the earliest known icons to those of the close of the 17th century.

 
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Icons of Macedonia

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