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Icons by Anonymous Icon-Painters In the 14th Century Up To Macedonia’s coming Under Ottoman Turkish Rule (4) |
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At the time of the conservation of the painting in the church of St. Nicholas Hospitaller in Ohrid, during the dismantling of the wooden icon made of ordinary beams of pine, we discovered among the very few icons, rather darkened by the thick coat of soot and dust which had built up through the centuries, an icon dedicated to St. Naum. An unknown painter of the 17th century had painted a waist-length portrait of the Archangel Michael on its reverse. The painting of the reverse of the old icon of St. Naum came about because the figure of the saint had been covered by dark, opaque film of soot, but also because the board had cracked vertically in the middle and in the 17th century it may have been used just as a board for a new icon. In order to mend the cracked board, the unknown master put a board lath on side with the picture of St. Naum to reinforce it, hammered in with six thick nails which seriously damaged the upper part of the icon. However, after removing this strip and cleaning away the dust and soot, a very well-preserved portrait of St. Naum appeared. Seeking the painter among the artists who were working in Ohrid in the 14th century, we came to the conclusion that the figure of the icon showed great similarities to the figure of St. Naum painted in old St. Clement’s Ohrid, which was founded by the priest Stephen in 1378. It is a matter of the same draughtsmanship and use of colour and the same physiognomic characteristics of the well-known saint, which certainly reveal the hand of the same painter who belonged to a sound local painters’ workshop, equally skilled in fresco technique and easel painting. In St. Sophia, the Cathedral Church of Ohrid Archbishopric, at the start of the conservation work on this major building, rather damaged icon dedicated icon to St. Nicholas is depicted together with Jesus Christ and the Mother of God, who presents him with an omophorion and book, while scenes illustrating his life are painted on board frame. Most of the compositions on the frame have been destroyed. The figure of the saint and the scenes on the frame are skillfully worked. They point to the work of a talented icon-painter who was active in the last two decades of the 14th century. However, his painting is still strongly influenced by the icon-painting of the first half of that century when in Ohrid and Macedonia generally very significant works of medieval art were created. |
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There is one curiosity we have noticed in this icon. St. Nicholas’ halo is represented with a painted revetment on a dark green ground in place of the metal revetment. A completely identical halo is to be found in another Ohrid icon also dedicated to St. Nicholas. The icon was discovered in the church of the Mother of God Peribleptos. By all appearances, it also originates from the same workshop. Later, the icon was given a halo of gilded silver. However, the plates the halo is composed of belong to some older icon, where they covered the background. The stylistic features of the ornamentation and the very good workmanship show that it is the work of a goldsmith’ workshop which was active towards the end of the 13th century. It goes without saying that the revetment was affixed much latter, when the icon on which it had previously been was discarded. This may have happened as much as 300 to 400 years later. Among the Ohrid icons which have kept their original revetments almost in their entirety are the Mother of God with the infant Christ from the church of the Mother of God Peribleptos and the icon of St. Nicholas from church of St. Nicholas Gerakomia, both in Ohrid. These two icons stand out from the large group of Ohrid icons, in the first place, in certain essential elements in their painting. Firstly, there is a technological treatment of the base on which they are painted. A densely-woven canvas with a very thin layer of plaster grounding covers the wooded board. Although many icons from Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Ohrid likewise have canvases on the wood, in no case do they have such a thin plaster grounding. Secondly, the Mother of God is not showed as a middle-aged, sorrowful and reserved mother, but as a young and shapely woman with a fine face dominating by large eyes with eyelashes. Thus in appearance, stature and dress the Mother of God in this icon reminds us of the Madonnas painted throughout the churches on the Dalmatian coast, as well as in Italy, and that by painters who, although imbued with the Romaoian aesthetic, introduced elements of the environment in which they worked and lived into their painting. The face of St. Nicholas has also been touched by the same spirit, though to a laser degree. Many experts on these icons agree that their painting has been influenced by the art of the West. Both icons have revetments of which it should immediately be said that they came from the same glodsmiths’ workshop. The haloes, on which there are representations of the evangelists in medallions, attract particular attention. On the Mother of God’s halo there are portrayed the Evangelist Matthew, as an angel who holds a scepter with a foliate top; the Evangelist John, in the form of an eagle, and Mark, as a two-headed eagle carrying in its talons two tablets or books. On the frame, in the same technique, there are full-length figures of saints, but it is difficult to say who these saints are. In the square fields there were plates with inscriptions. Only two of these have been preserved, with the remaining parts of a inscription: \NI\KOLA EPI\CKOP\. There were the same sort of plates on the revetment of the icon dedicated to St. Nicholas, but they have not been preserved. In contrast to the halo of the Mother of God on which, as we have seen, there are representations of only three evangelists, on St.Nicholas’ halo there are four: St. John, in the form of a eagle; Matthew, in the form of an angel; Mark, in the form of a lion and Luke in the form of an ox. Comparing the figures from the revetments of the two icons, we notice a certain difference in the manner of treatment and in plasticity achieved which would suggest that the revetment of St. Nicholas was made in the same workshop but by another craftsman, whose line is more precise and forms clearer and more plastic. We can safely affirm that the icons were a gift from one of the high priests of Ohrid. If the inscription on the plates, where Bishop Nicholas is mentioned, is taken as being complete, then it is difficult to identify who the bishop in question is. In studies, the bishop Nicholas mentioned on these plates is often considered to be the same person as the well-known Ohrid Archbishop Nicholas of the time of Czar Dusan. Such a supposition could well be corrected if we do not treat the inscription on the plates as being complete because, as we have seen, no complete word or name is written on one single plate, but they carry on to the next. Thus while the first two letters of the name Nicholas /NI/ are on the plate on the second the four letters engraved are /KOLA/, which, all together, make up the name Nikola (Nicholas). The case could be the same with the plate on which there are the three letters /EPI/. If this were so, the four letters /ARHI/ could have been engraved on the first plate, three - /EPI/ - are already engraved on the second, and on the third the four letters /CKOP/ could have been engraved, which all together would give the word ARHIEPICKOP (archbishop). It would then be quite clear who the personage in question is. It should be emphasized that these icons also lack a part of their metal revetments. The icon of the Mother of God with the infant Christ lacks a third of the right side of the frame and that of St. Nicholas lacks almost half of the lower part of the frame. The missing parts of the revetments were later replaced with other which, on the basis of their style and the quality of their workmanship, belong to older icons. In the early seventies of the 14th century, quite a large group of unknown painters completed the decoration of the church of St. Demtrius in Marko’s Monastery at the village of Susica, near Skopje. One of the painters, perhaps the master-painter who worked on the altar-space, in illustrating the Acathistus of the Mother of God painted in a very interesting composition which shows a procession headed by two icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria and the Mother of God Eleousa. In his iconographic studies, L. Mirkovic gives a complete interpretation of these compositions, pointing out that they illustrate the 12 eikos and 13 kondak of the Acathistus of the Mother of God, where there is a procession in gratitude to the Mother of God relating to the belief that during the rule of the Emperor Heraclius (610-641) she saved Constantinople from its enemies. The icons in fresco in these compositions have all the features of the icons painted on wood. They are processionals icons, which were carried in various ways. Some of them were attached to a long handle or pole and others, as is in the case with one of the processional icons in the composition from Marko’s Monastery, were made with special bases on wheels, while a third kind were carried on the backs of people. We have emphasized several times that the majority of the most important Ohrid icons are processional ones. Among them, the icon on which the Slav educators St. Clement of Ohrid and St. Naum are depicted in half-length attracts particular attention. Unlike the other processional icons, this one has a specific form which is identical to that of several Russian icons. We would mention as being most typical and best-known of this group the icon of the Battle between the Novgoradians and the Suzdalians from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the icon showing the same historical subject from Novogorod Museum of History and Architecture, both from the second half of the 14th century. Many different opinions have been expressed concerning the dating of the processional icon of St. Clement of Ohrid and St. Naum. On the basis of style, we consider the icon to have originated from the hand of an unknown painter who held a significant place in the icon-painting of Ohrid artistic centre during the last years of the 14th and the first of the 15th centuries. Judging by the quality of the workmanship, the unknown painter was taught in the spirit of the old Ohrid tradition. His excellent knowledge of the physiognomic features of the orthodox Ohrid saints supports this. The line is firm and sufficiently precise and the colouring is rich, employing a palette which is similar to that used in painting of figures which are close to the worldly portraits. We cannot agree with accepted opinion that this is the work of a painter who came to Ohrid from Thessaloniki because the painting of this icon shows precisely the continuity of painting which we encounter in the Ohrid centre from the last years of the 14th and the first years of the 15tn centuries and which indisputably has quite different characteristics from icon-painting in Thessaloniki in that period. Another processional icon on which the Mother of God with Christ is depicted on one side and the Annunciation on the other belongs to the closing years of the 14th century. According to the assembled information, the icon was in one of the Ohrid churches until 1923 and was then removed to the National Museum in Belgrade, where it remains to this day. It is the work of an unknown master whose work posses all the characteristics of that of the last years of the 14th century, when the figure of the Mother of God no longer has any of the well-known gracefulness and tenderness which are present and indeed dominate the work of the first half of that century. There is a gilded silver revetment on the icon decorated with geometrical motifs. The revetment on the frame is damaged, so that it is impossible to get a complete impression of the iconographic content. It can be assumed that the Deisis was depicted on five square plates on the upper part of the frame. In the centre was the portrayal of Jesus Christ and on either side of him was an angel (only one has been preserved, that on Christ’s left). On the other plates St. John the Baptist and the Mother of God were shown. The triptych found in the church of St. Nicholas the Shepherd in Ohrid certainly belongs to this period. In the central panel (the wings have been lost) is Jesus Christ the Archpriest, shown in half-length, dressed in a richly-ornamented sachos. With His right hand He gives a blessing and in His left He carries a large open book with a text in Greek. |
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Icons of Macedonia |
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