On the Question of the Metropolitan and the Provincial in the Macedonian and Cypriot Variants of Late Comnenian “Mannerism”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18688/Keywords:
Late Comnenian mannerism, Kurbinovo, Lagoudera, Enkleistra, Kastoria, stylistic trends, Byzantine painting, late 12th centuryAbstract
This article is part of the research project “The art of artistic centers of the Byzantine world from the 11th to the 14th century” at the State Institute for Art Studies.
In the literature on the topic of late Comnenian “mannerism”, there is a widespread idea that the difference between the Macedonian and Cypriot versions of this style is due to the distortion of the metropolitan model common within both regions in the former. The article demonstrates that the initial variability of “mannerism” in Constantinople was the key factor. The version of it, on which Kurbinovo, Agioi Anargyroi of Kastoria, and the icons associated with them are based, goes back to the expressionistic miniatures of the manuscripts of the second quarter of the 12th century belonging to the circle of Homilies of Jacob of Kokkinobaphos Monastery. The Cypriot “mannerism” is based on a more classical version of this style, exemplified by the icon “Annunciation” from the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Furthermore, an abstract tendency is discernible in the Cypriot “mannerism”, which draws from the local tradition of the “ascetic” style and, in certain of its manifestations, consonant with the new monumental style of around 1200, both being subordinated in the said ensembles to the dominant mannerist taste.
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