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Portable Icons in Helladic Macedonia and Mount Athos during the 13th Century

Articles

• Τσιγαρίδας, Ευθύμιος
• ΤΣΙΓΑΡΙΔΑΣ, Ευθύμιος Ν.

The 13th-century icons, published or unpublished, identified to date in Macedonia and Mount Athos comprise aparticularly interesting group of over 40 works. Most ofthem are kept in the monasteries on the Holy Mountain orare from churches in major urban centres of Macedonia,that is Thessaloniki, Veroia and primarily Kastoria.Specifically, the extant 13th-century icons in the monasteries of Mount Athos number 26 and are distributed asfollows: Lavra 9, Vatopedi 11, Chilandar 3 and one each inKoutloumousiou, Pantokratoros, Hagiou Pavlou.In the region of Macedonia, excluding Mount Athos, thereare 15-17 13th-century icons, of which 12 have been identified in churches in Kastoria. In our opinion there are four13th-century icons in churches in Veroia and just one from achurch in Thessaloniki. We do not include here 13th-century icons preserved in the area of greater Macedonia, suchas Ochrid, some of which originate from or are associatedwith artistic workshops in Thessaloniki.The thematic repertoire of the 13th-century icons is limited.The figures represented are the Virgin with Child (12 icons),mainly in the type of the Hodegetria, Christ Pantocrator(5 icons), St Nicholas (5 icons), St George (4 icons), StDemetrios (2 icons), St Athanasios the Athonite (2 icons)and one icon each of the saints: Cosmas and Damian, Peterthe Apostle, John Chrysostom, John the Theologian, Stephen and an unidentified hierarch.Only four icons have been located from the Cycle of theTwelve Feasts, two of which are in Kastoria and representthe Koimesis, while another two, in Veroia and the Pantokratoros Monastery, are of the Crucifixion.In terms of liturgical use, the majority of icons are fromiconostases or proskynetaria. Dominant among the iconostasis icons, mainly of the second half of the 13th century,are the despotic icons, while one is from the bema door. Twoicons of large dimensions, of the early and the late 13thcentury, depict the Virgin full-bodied, in the type of theHodegetria and must have been placed on the fronts of therow of piers demarcating the iconostasis. Only two of all thesurviving icons are double-sided. It is a striking fact that noicons from the iconostasis architrave, with the Dodecaortonor the Great Deesis, or even a combination of the two thematic units, survive from this period in Macedonia and MountAthos. This absence in the 13th century is even stranger,since icons of the iconostasis architrave with the abovesubjects have been identified in the monasteries of the GreatLavra and Vatopedi on Mount Athos in the 12th century.In terms of date, 11 icons are attributed to the first half andmainly the first quarter of the 13th century, while theremaining 29 are dated in the second half of the century andmainly in the last quarter.The 13th-century icons in Macedonia and Mount Athos areof particular artistic interest, not only because of their highquality - evidence of provenance from the great artisticcentres of Byzantium, Thessaloniki or Constantinople -, butalso because they represent a variety of currents that developed in the both the first and the second half of thecentury. Stylistically they follow manners of monumentalpainting, with which they are contemporaneous.We believe that some of the icons can be included in theartistic activity or the workshops of leading artists of the'Macedonian School', such as Manuel Panselinos, MichaelAstrapas and Eutychios.Last, there are very few 13th-century portable icons in whichelements of contact with Western art appear, and these arelocated in Thessaloniki and mainly Kastoria. As far as thelatter is concerned, this phenomenon is not due to Latinrule, which was a very brief interlude in Macedonia, but tocontacts with towns in Italy, via Epirus, the Venetian-heldIonian Islands and Dalmatia. The phenomenon is intensified in the ecclesiastical art of Kastoria, both wall-paintingsand portable icons, in the last quarter of the 15th century.In conclusion, compared to the level of research 30 yearsago, the 40 or more icons that have been identified inMacedonian towns and Mount Athos, represent a significantadvance. As far as the icons in Kastoria and Mount Athosare concerned, this is primarily due to personal research andthe organization and personal supervision of conservationworks in these areas of Macedonia over the last decade.

• Arts
• History and Archaeology

• Arts and religion

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4313
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.556