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Two Icons of the Early Cretan School in the Vatopaidi Monastery

Articles

• Τσιγαρίδας, Ευθύμιος
• ΤΣΙΓΑΡΙΔΑΣ, Ευθύμιος Ν.

The article discusses two icons, of the Deesis and of StJohn the Theologian, in the Vatopaidi monastery, which areearly works of the Cretan School and are dated respectivelyto the first half and the second half of the fifteenth century.The iconography of the Deesis (Fig. 1) is consistent with thatof a group of icons of this subject, which are of the CretanSchool and are dated in the fifteenth century. In terms ofcomposition, there is an obvious disposition to project thetriumphal figure of Christ (Fig. 2), which is observed in earlyfifteenth-century works of the Cretan School, such as theDeesis in the Collection of St Catherine of the Sinaites atHerakleion, and primarily the Deesis in the Viannou monastery on Crete, which icon bears the signature of Angelos.Likewise, the technical and stylistic features of the physiognomy of Christ, the Virgin and St John the Baptist (Figs 3-4) link the Vatopaidi icon of the Deesis with the cycle ofworks by Angelos.The representation of St John the Theologian (Fig. 5), whois accompanied by the personification of Divine Wisdom(Fig. 7) dictating to him the gospel text, has its origins in depictions of the Four Evangelists in churches of the firstPalaiologan period, decorated by workshops of Thessalonica. Indeed, this subject enjoyed wide dissemination in the artof the second half of the fourteenth and the early fifteenthcentury, both in monumental painting and in icons.

• History and Archaeology
• Arts

• Arts and religion

856: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4281, DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dchae.490

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/vol45_30
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.490