Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Culture & Arts subjects for wider area of: "AGION OROS Mountain HALKIDIKI" .
AGION OROS (Mountain) HALKIDIKI
About 12,000 manuscripts, comprising one of the richest collections
in the world, are preserved in the 20 monasteries of Mount Athos. Most of these
manuscripts concern texts of an ecclesiastical nature, the remainder being texts
of ancient Greek literature.
More than 800 manuscripts are illustrated with Old and New Testament
subjects and date to the period between the 9th and 18th centuries. The oldest,
such as no. 61 at Pantokrator
Monastery, date back to the years shortly after the end, in 843, of the iconoclastic
movement and provide invaluable evidence of the nature of Byzantine art.
Most of the illuminated manuscripts are preserved in the larger and
older monasteries. Their diverse provenance and the paintings they contain, which
mirror the artistic movements of the 11th, 12th and 14th centuries, are proof
both of the widespread influence and of the ever-evolving nature of Byzantine
art.
Illuminated manuscripts (867-1204)
The rich libraries of the Protaton and the twenty monasteries on Mount
Athos house over 800 illuminated manuscripts. Of diverse provenance and spanning
a period from the 9th to the 18th century, they provide a wonderful picture of
this painting genre.
The illuminated manuscripts of the 9th to 12th centuries are few in
number and most of them represent the art of Constantinople,
since they originated from copyist scriptoria of that city. The psalters with
full-page miniatures are an example (Psalter no. 61 in the Pantocrator Monastery).
Illuminated manuscipts (1204-1430)
The miniatures in the manuscripts embody the aesthetic concepts prevailing
in monumental painting. The only known codex of Thessalonikan provenance is that
in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Ms. Gr. th. f.1), commissioned by Demetrios Palaeologos,
son of the emperor Andronikos II. This is the first "pocket book" and
contains only pictures, no text. Scriptoria are known to have operated on Mount
Athos in the 13th and mainly after the mid-14th century; one of them was based
on the monastery of Chelandari.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
Painting, in the form of murals and icons, was practised on Mount
Athos without interruption from the 11th to the 19th century. There are 11th century
mosaics at Vatopedi and outstanding murals, executed around 1300 probably by Manuel
Panselinos, in the Protaton church. In the 16th century in particular Mount Athos
attracted the most eminent names associated with Orthodox painting.
In 1535 the Cretan Theophanis decorated the katholikon of the Great
Lavra and later, in 1546, together with his son Symeon the katholikon of Stavronikita
Monastery. Tzortzis, another Cretan, painted in the monasteries of Dionysiou
(1547) and Docheiariou
(1568); Cretan Antonios (1544) painted in Xenophontos.
Artistic output declined in the 17th century, but was revived in the 18th, when
painters from Epirus and Macedonia were invited to work on Athos.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains image.
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