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The Representation of the Baptism in the Old Metropolis at Veroia

Articles

• Κατσαρός, Βασίλης
• ΚΑΤΣΑΡΟΣ, Βασίλης

The representation in the wall-paintings of the third phaseof decoration of the Old Metropolis at Veroia is outstandingin the ensemble of Byzantine representations of the subjectby virtue of its iconography (Fig. 1). The iconographie details of the composition were earlier thought to transfer tothe Palaiologan painting phase of the monument iconographie models of the Roman period and Late Antiquity,which function as images of everyday life and enhance thefestive character of the Epiphany. However, a more generalsymbolism pervades each episode and the iconographie details function as integral elements of the symbolic system ofthe representation.The image which is projected as an unicum in the Veroiawall-painting is that of the children turning a mangle to haulin a net, in which reclines a naked child with outstretchedarms (Fig. 2). Research has paid little attention to this depiction, relegating it to the secondary Nilotic details of therepresentation overall (Figs 2 and 3), whereas it is essentially the key to interpreting the symbolic content of scene. Inall probability the detail is a "miracle" of the rescue of achild from drowning and is consistent with the soteriologicaltheory (Fig. 4) of the Resurrection from the likewise symbolic death in water. Such themes are known in Byzantiumfrom literary texts.The painter, certainly influenced by the environment ofConstantinople, with which Veroia was in contact on manylevels in the early fourteenth century, seems to represent inthe wall-painting in the Old Metropolis the widely disseminated miracle of the saving of a child, in the church ofthe Theotokos of the Chalkoprateia.

• Arts
• History and Archaeology

• Arts and religion

856: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4271, DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dchae.480

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/vol45_20
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.480