Στρατή Aγγελική, Ο Τροχός του ανθρώπινου βίου στο ναό του Αγίου Ιωάννη του Προδρόμου στο Απόζαρι στην Καστοριά. Εικονογραφία του πρόσκαιρου και του μάταιου στη βυζαντινή και μεταβυζαντινή τέχνη

Στρατή Aγγελική, 

«Ο Τροχός του ανθρώπινου βίου στο ναό του Αγίου Ιωάννη του Προδρόμου στο Απόζαρι στην Καστοριά. Εικονογραφία του πρόσκαιρου και του μάταιου στη βυζαντινή και μεταβυζαντινή τέχνη», Το Αρχαιολογικό Έργο στην Άνω Μακεδονία 3 (2013), σ. 171-186 + 350. 

Αιανή 2019

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Λέξεις κλειδιά: Καστοριά, Απόζαρι, Τέχνη, Ζωγραφική, Τροχός ανθρώπινου βίου, Δένδρο της Ζωής, Ιωάννης Πρόδρομος

Keywords: Kastoria, Apozari, Art, Painting, The Wheel of human life, The Tree of Life, St John the Forerunner

Strati Aggeliki, The wheel of human life in the Church of Agios Ioannis Prodromos at Apozari in Kastoria. Iconography of the fleeting and futile in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art.

Summary

The study publishes the rare iconographic theme of the wheel of human life and the tree of life, depicted, among other didactic representations, on the women’s quarter of the church of Agios Ioannis Prodromos in the neighbourhood of Apozari in Kastoria. The church’s paintings date to AD 1727 according to the donor inscription and was painted by David Selenitsiotis. Both the wheel, which depicts the eight stages of human life, as well as the Tree of Life, whose trunk is being eaten by two mice, representing day and night respectively, symbolize the futile and fleeting nature of human life and are meant to advise. The iconographic theme of the life stages, either by itself or embellished with the four seasons of the year, the zodiac, and the day or night that move the wheel, sometimes combined with the tree of life and its variants, is common in monumental painting (mosaics and wall-paintings) as well as in portable icons, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, miniature artwork, already since antiquity and later on in the Byzantine and Post- Byzantine era. Many researchers dealt with this theme, which has an Oriental origin and Buddhist roots, in various combinations, such as the Wheel of the life of the World, or the allegorical composition, deriving from the medieval novel of Barlaam and Josaphat, that depicts the course of human life, the sweetness of the fruits from the tree of life, but also death and the vainness of living. 

The painter of the Church of Agios Ioannis Prodromos in Kastoria, inspired by similar examples and the trends of his time, and using the Painter’s Manual by Dionysios of Fourna as a guide, created the wheel of human life in association with the tree of life obviously with a clear didactic character.