Lecture: ‘Wall Paintings of the Monastery of Saint George – Knežino (Kičevo)

Corresponding Member Sašo Cvetkovski of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) will deliver a lecture titled ‘Wall Paintings of the Monastery of Saint George – Knežino (Kičevo)’ on Wednesday, 23 September, at the Grand Hall of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts at noon.

Archaeological exploration of the Knežino site, which has been ongoing for the last 20 years, has yielded significant results related to the discovery of a previously unknown monument of medieval Byzantine art dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The architectural remains of a medieval church, the Church of Saint George, have been recovered, as well as a large number of fragments of old, highly stylised and sophisticated medieval wall paintings. They are similar to Palaeologan art and are reminiscent of renowned zoographers Michael and Eutychios’ workshop.

The entire collection of the recovered fragments belongs to the western part of the Church and the area of the narthex, and includes the painted cycles of the Menologion and The Last Judgment, the composition of the Tree of Jesse, and individual depictions of saints. It is precisely these distinctive thematic and stylistic characteristics, together with certain historical sources, that have made it possible to identify the discovered remains of the church of the Knežino Monastery as the Church of Saint George in the Kičevo region, which, according to Archbishop Danilo II, was renovated and generously endowed by King Milutin.

Sašo Cvetkovski (1970) is a corresponding member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU). He graduated from the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skoplje in 1994, where he also  received his master’s degree in 2002 and doctorate in 2008. He is employed  as a Principal Research Fellow at the Cvetan Grozdanov Research Centre for Cultural Heritage, at the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is a professor at the Institute of National History and the ‘St Clement of Ohrid’ Orthodox Theological Faculty in Skopje. He is Vice-President of the National Committee for Byzantine and Medieval Studies of Macedonia.

He is the author of around a dozen monographs and more than 90 scientific and expert papers published in Macedonian and international publications. His research focuses on medieval Byzantine and post-Byzantine art of the Ohrid Archbishopric, as well as the cultural history and art of the nineteenth-century Macedonia.

The event will be streamed here.