Dimitrova Elizabeta, On the path from Kurbinovo to Pološko: the picturesque macedonian genre and its historic destiny

Dimitrova Elizabeta, 

«On the path from Kurbinovo to Pološko: the picturesque macedonian genre and its historic destiny», On the Cross-Path of Cultural Ideas. Macedonia, the Balkans, Southeast Europe - Heritage, Management, Resources. A collection of papers from the international conference held in Ohrid in September 2019, p. 159-174. 

2020

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Summary

If one should venture to take a journey through Macedonian medieval artistic treasury, one should be aware that such an enterprise could be both pleasing and dramatic at the same time. The reason for such a duality is twofold: one's orbit will revolve around some of the masterpieces of Byzantine visual creativity, while their actual situation might not be very satisfying to the eye of the beholder due to the damage caused by natural disasters, earthquakes , military campaigns, and most sad of all, human neglect. As a small and struggling, yet modern state, we tend to investigate and present the results of our research activities dedicated to iconographic, stylistic and aesthetic analyses of the fresco arrangements dated in the medieval era, as well as discover their genuine features, both visual and ideological. However, the least attention in regard to the preservation of our cultural heritage has been paid to their actual well being, in other words-at this very moment, dozens of representative works of art from the Byzantine artistic production in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia are at high risk of degradation and deterioration Saint George at Kurbinovo (1191) 1 , Saint Nicholas at the village of 1 V. N. Lazarev, Živopis XI-XII vekov v Makedoniji, Actes du XIIe Congrès international d'études byzantines I, Beograd 1963, pp. 129-131; G. Babiċ, Hristološke raspre u XII veku i pojava novih scena u apsidalnom dekoru vizantijskih crkava, Zbornik za likovne umetnosti 2, Novi Sad 1966, pp. 11-30; L. Hadermann-Misguish, Kurbinovo. Les fresques de saint Georges et la pein-ture Byzantine du XII siècle, Bruxelles 1975, pp. 43-318, 321-551; R. Hamann-Mac Lean, Grund-legung zu einer Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Monumentalmalerei in Serbien und Makedo-nien, Giessen 1976, pp. 276-281; A. Wharton, Art of Empire. Painting and Architecture of the Byzantine Periphery.