Die Panagia-Kirche

Hardly any other region in Greece offers such a density of churches with Byzantine frescoes as Crete does. Its almost one thousand painted churches represent about half of the total number of decorated churches in Greece (7th - 15th c.). The great majority of Cretan churches were painted in the 14th and 15th centuries, during the period of Venetian rule (1211-1669). However, the number of iconographic programmes that has been published partly or completely is very small. The studies of Cretan monuments published so far still do not provide a sufficient basis for a representative history of the art and the culture of the island. Accordingly Cretan monuments have not been adequately perceived and considered in general accounts of the history of Byzantine art, which in turn is the reason why the unique art and culture of the island have still not yet found the esteem they deserve. The primary concern of this present study is to make a contribution to the urgently needed basic research in this subject. Its main objective is the complete publication of the Church of the Panagia, painted by the atelier of Ioannes Pagomenos and dated by the donor`s inscription to 1331/2, and the undated Church of the Archangel Michael that was painted by an anonymous atelier. It can be dated as being from before 1370 on the basis of a graffito. Both churches are located in Kakodiki, in the district of Selino in the prefecture of Chania in south- western Crete. Both of them are not only highly interesting monuments in their own right, but also belong to two larger, chronologically successive groups of churches painted by ateliers in each case. Thus the investigation and comparison of their wall paintings leads to far-reaching conclusions about the art historical developments, cultural background as well as the way of working, organisation and structure of Byzantine painting ateliers. The perspective chosen in this study takes advantage of the good initial situation with regard to the monuments to hand in order to make them accessible as ideal monuments in the analysis of local ateliers, regional Cretan iconographic tradition and the general development of Byzantine art in the 14th century. At the same time, however, this study has also other important objectives and would like to stimulate the discussion on special aspects which have been scarcely or inadequately treated in research up to now. The Latin occupation of the island and the political and religious conflicts that took place during this period form a particularly fascinating framework in terms of cultural history. The study is divided as follows: At the beginning there is an introduction to the historico-cultural background. This section contains an outline of the historical situation from the conquest of Crete by the Venetians up to the 17th century, as well as information about the division and administration of the land, the structure of the feudi, the religious life on the island and the relations between the Venetians and the Cretans. The main interest here lies in the situation in the hinterland for which there is only scanty information in the written sources. Then the two churches are presented separately. The structure of the investigation is the same for both churches: after details of the state of research, the donor`s inscription of each church is analysed and the information they contain is evaluated. Then the pictorial programme, the iconography and the style are described and analysed in order to find out whether they show distinctive features compared with Cretan tradition, or there are points in common with or divergences from Byzantine tradition. And at the same time to what extent there was any influence of western iconography is discussed. In addition, the comparative examination of both churches with the other churches belonging to the same atelier group provides important arguments for the question of the attribution, and the typical features of each workshop are brought out as a result. In this way, on the one hand, the frescoes of Kakodiki are fitted into the art historical development of the island and the great Byzantine centres of the 14th century and, on the other, findings are made about the way the painting ateliers worked. A summary completes the first section of the work. It assembles the results of the part investigations on the pictorial programme, iconography and style of each church by synthesis, which complement each other regarding method and content, and evaluates them for the question of the painting ateliers. Questions regarding the clients and their interaction with the workshop are particularly interesting in this section, as it is possible to find out to what extent the clients influenced the pictorial programme and what subjects belonged to the repertory of the atelier`s tradition, whether the iconography and style remained constant and finally also what the relationship of the painters in the atelier to each other was. In the second part of the study the findings of the various investigations in the first part are summarised and further evaluated. The results deal with the following three aspects: 1. Observations on painting ateliers` structure and way of working in the 14th century 2. Art historical trends in Crete in the 14th century: pictorial programme, iconography, style 3. The churches as reflected by Cretan culture in the 14th century In the sense of the state of research described at the beginning, this study is intended to be the start not only towards decisively enlarging our knowledge of Cretan art through the presentation of new material. At the same time the attempt is made to develop many and diverse conclusions initially for art historical research, but then also to make them useful in a wider approach for cultural history evaluation. The churches of the Panagia and of Archangel Michael in Kakodiki, together with their respective church groups, can be regarded as ideal monuments of Cretan-Byzantine art of the 14th century. In addition, the rich evidence provides the possibility of integrating them into a methodical case-study for an interdisciplinary examination of the culture of the hinterland. The church decorations with their religious representations for the orthodox cult and the pictures for the self-representation of their donors can be experienced as an expression creating an identity for the population under foreign rule.