Informace o publikaci
Signs on the rock. Red paintings in the valleys of Göreme and Kiliçlar
| Autoři | |
|---|---|
| Rok publikování | 2017 |
| Druh | Článek ve sborníku |
| Konference | Cappadocia-Hypogea 2017 : Proceedings of International Congress of Speleology in Artificial Cavities |
| Fakulta / Pracoviště MU | |
| Citace | |
| Klíčová slova | Cappadocia; rock painting; rupestrian habitat; Byzantine art; red painting |
| Popis | This paper aims at presenting some preliminary results of the study of red pictorial decorations directly applied on the rock in Cappadocian rupestrian churches and civil monuments, which we have undertaken within the research and conservation project “Rock painting in Cappadocia. For a project of knowledge, conservation and enhancement”, carried out by Tuscia University team since 2006. Such pictorial decorations are very popular in the rock hewn churches of the region, but they have scarcely attracted the attention of scholars, who have focused mainly on the paintings realized on plaster and their extraordinarily rich iconographic programs. Once the excavation was finished, the church generally received a very simple pictorial decoration in red, generally applied on the rock with no preparatory layer. Red paintings emphasize the main lines of the architecture and can include crosses and decorative motives, but no human figures. Subsequently, after a short or a long time span the church could get a pictorial decoration on plaster, which partially or totally covered the red signs. In some cases, however, no paintings other than the red decoration were added. Red pictorial decorations are heterogeneous on several levels: techniques and materials, forms and meaning. They can be interpreted as an act of consecration or they can include more articulated patterns. In some cases there is an evident intention to avoid holy figures and to replace them with aniconic motives. However these paintings are not connected to Byzantine Iconoclasm. In some monuments we can see figures of animals which had probably an apotropaic function. We will discuss some examples from Göreme and Kiliçlar valleys, aiming at a better understanding of the chronology and function of the red signs, both in religious and in civil monuments. |