The Appearance of the New Painting Centres In the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. The Icon - Painting Centre of Slepce

The church of the monastery of St. Nicholas of Toplice, near the village of Zvan was refurbished, enlarged and painted with the financial support of its new patron, Demetrius Pepik, the lord of Kratovo and lease-holder of the mines in Kratovo Zeleznec. The fresco-painting and the icons for wooden iconostasis of the church were done by a team led by the icon-painter Dmitar from the village of Leunovo, near Mavrovo. The name of one of his collaborators is known from the inscription on one of the beams in the narthex of the church. This is John the Icon-painter who, in addition to frescoes, painted icons on wood.

Dmitar the Icon-painter painted the large throne icons which have been preserved of Jesus Christ the Saviour, the Mother of God with Christ, and St. Nicholas. On two smaller icons he painted the compositions of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and Dormition of the Mother of God. Here we find his signature: “By the hand of Dmitar from Leunovo”. A series of small festal icons, made for the church of the Slepce Monastery, has also been discovered. Among them, we would mention the Annunciation, the Birth of the Mother of God and the Descent into Hell. We would date these icons between 1537 and 1543, i.e. between the painting of the frescoes in the church of St. Nicholas of Toplice and the painting of the large throne icons. One of which is accurate dated. Dmitar shows himself to be a painter who has mastered the techniques of fresco and icon painting, but like a large number of other painters who worked in the 16^th century, he failed to free himself from the practice of directly copying scenes already found in the painting of previous times, particularly that of the 14^th century. Thus, in working on the frescoes in the church of St. Nicholas, Dmitar copied scenes created by an earlier master. He even imitated the old ornamentation. His use of colour appears impoverished and thick line of his drawing makes the clothing of the saints clumsy and heavy, while the dark shadows around the eyes make the faces expressionless.

The work of John, the icon-painter to whom we attribute the small icon of the Desis from the church of the Slepce Monastery near Demir Hisar, has similar qualities.

In the 16^th century the Slepce Monastery together with the churches and monasteries in its vicinity was becoming one of the most important painting and copyist in Macedonia on account of its geographical location and its distance from the main roads. A very large number of important works by Macedonian painters, wood-carvers and copyists of liturgical books were produced there. It was in the very church of Slepce Monastery that we found two large serpentine crosses of which the first serpent cross, together with the accompanying icons of the Mother of God and St. John, was mounted on the iconostasis in the church of St. John the Forerunner, while the second belonged to the small church of St. John the Divine, where it was mounted on a improvised iconostasis, but without the accompanying icons.

We should at once point out that both the crosses and the accompanying icons are very valuable examples of the wood-carver's art.

The same compositions is found on both crosses. In the centre of the cross is the crucified Christ, and above his head are personifications of the sun and moon. On the arms of the cross are the symbols of the evangelists. The workshops where these serpentine crosses were painted maintained the old tradition both in technical accomplishment and the iconography. The use of the old formulae ensured the base without losing their intensity. In the wood-carver's and then the painters’ workshop the work was entrusted to two different masters who, in their prolonged work together, had succeeded in approximating their concepts of the use of colour and of line. However when a more careful analysis of the work of these artists is made, the characteristics of different hands can be seen. Thus the painter of the first cross has a softer line and warmer colouring while the second, although using the same stencil, in painting the faces uses impasto, typical of painters who have worked for a long time in fresco technique.

On the basis on their great iconographic similarities with the large, well known serpentine cross from the Polog Monastery on River Crna, which is dated by its inscriptions from 1584, and which in our opinion originated from the same circle of painters and wood-carvers, we date the crosses from the Slepce Monastery as from the end of the 16^th century.

The activities of the painters of the Slepce centre continued undiminished in the 17^th century. Thus in 1607 the monk Kalinik painted the Great Art for the iconostasis of the monastery church. The artist had mastered the technique of icon-painting, but the folds of the garments of his figures are angular and heavy, although an attempt at conscientious work can be seen.

In 1627, a medium-size icon dedicated to the Three-handed Mother of God was painted which was certainly for the Slepce Monastery church. Its inscription says that the icon was a gift from the hieromonk Sava. We have already mentioned that a large church dedicated to the Three-handed Mother of God was built in Skopje, and in Chilandari there is to this day the “miracle-working” icon of the Three-handed Mother of God. However, there are not three painted hands in the Chilandari icon, but two while the third is made of silver and affixed to the icon. The legend of the “miracle-working” icon of the Three-handed Mother of God did not die with the centuries: in the 14^th century the unknown painter of the frescoes in the church of the village of Karan, in Serbia, painted a fresco-icon on the iconostasis in the church where the Mother of God is shown with three hands. That is the only known icon of the Three-handed Mother of God from this early period.

In Macedonia we find surviving icons dedicated to the Three-handed Mother of God from as late as the 17^th century, such as that in the Lesnovo Monastery, where in 1626 a large throne icon was painted showing the Three-handed Mother of God. The third hand in this icon is represented by the unknown painter as the hand with which the Mother of God holds the infant Christ in her arms. It was only a year later, in 1627, that the Slepce icon was painted. It should be noted that, in our opinion, the painters of these icons had only heard the legend about the “miracle-working” Chilandari icon, on the basis of this had painted the three hands of the Mother of God. In the 17^th century we find such icons in Russia, where the legend had also spread.

By the middle of the 17^th century the creative intensity of the painters who worked around the Slepce icon-painting centre was gradually beginning to fall off.

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Icons of Macedonia

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