Bringing exquisite angels back to life
Byzantine murals restored at Church of Saint George in Kurbinovo, North Macedonia
The famous angels of Kurbinovo, a small village on the shore of the Great Prespa Lake in North Macedonia, have got their colorful robes, expressive faces and fluttering wings back, after the wear and tear of time had dulled the luster of what is regarded as one of the greatest murals of the Komnenian era (AD 1081-1204). This rebirth is the result of yet another important initiative of the European Center for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments (EKBMM) in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, which took on the task of restoring the murals in the Church of Saint George. Dating from 1191, the single-vaulted Byzantine basilica looks out at the lake from its perch on the slope of a verdant hill.
The building is a “simple church with a pitched red-tiled roof, but it is one of the most important Byzantine monuments in the Balkans,” noted the president of EKBMM’s board, Natalia Poulou, an associate professor of Byzantine archaeology at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University. What makes it so special is the murals EKBMM has helped save, as they are not only regarded as splendid – both technically and aesthetically – examples of Byzantine art, but have also survived almost in their entirety. Time and damp, however, took a toll and put the murals at risk, prompting the Culture Ministry in North Macedonia to reach out to its Greek counterpart. The agreement for the murals’ restoration was signed two years ago and the project is now in the final stretch. In that time, conservation teams from EKBMM, funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture, worked at the site “with deference for their historical and aesthetic testimony and guided by the principle of minimum intervention,” explains Poulou.
“It was a demanding task but the result is impressive,” she tells Kathimerini after leading an inspection of the work done at the Byzantine church by representatives of the two countries’ culture ministries.
‘Their stance, their wings, the draping of their robes point to the sophisticated aesthetic standards of the Komnenian era’
“Employing new technologies and materials, the conservators worked diligently to bring out the colors and forms that comprise the Christological cycle of the representations, such as the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ in the arch, the individual saints and the famed angels, chief among which are the flying angels encircling the Mother of Christ with such vivid vitality and expressiveness,” says Poulou.
The Kurbinovo angels are regarded as some of the most beautiful specimens of Byzantine painting. “Their stance, their wings, the draping of their robes point to the sophisticated aesthetic standards of the Komnenian era. It was one of the most important periods in the art of painting, which had reached its apogee in the 12th century and continued with increasing momentum in the 13th and 14th centuries, during the Palaiologos dynasty,” adds the expert. One of the angels, in fact, features on a North Macedonia banknote.
Albania and Jordan
The Kurbinovo project, which is slated to finish in about two weeks, is not the only one keeping the EKBMM busy these days. The organization, which has been under the jurisdiction of the Culture Ministry for the past 25 years, is responsible for the preservation and restoration of Byzantine and post-Byzantine monuments across the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Southern Europe and Africa, and has undertaken two sizable projects in Albania and Jordan.
It recently finished the study for the conservation of the murals gracing the 13th century multi-domed Saint Nicholas Monastery Church in Mesopotam in Albania and the actual work is expected to start when the Albanian authorities approve it. With ornately sculptured capitals colored using beeswax and resin – a technique employed in Constantinople – and impressive marble floors, it is a pre-eminent monument of the post-Byzantine period.
It is also busy designing a master plan for the archaeological site of the early Christian Basilica of Prophet Elias (Tell Mar Elias) in Jordan, following a memorandum signed by EKBMM, Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Jordan.
