Goryanska Rotunda: Analysis and Attempt to Systematize Fresco Painting

Abstract

The Horiany Rotunda continues to attract considerable scholarly interest not only in Ukraine, but also in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This interest is understandable, as no other comparable complex with fourteenth-century wall paintings has been preserved in Ukraine. With regard to Central Europe, it should be noted that the historical upheavals in the Kingdom of Hungary following the defeat by the Ottomans at Mohács in 1526, as well as the subsequent conflicts, led to the destruction of numerous artistic monuments associated with the medieval history of the region. The architecture of the church and its mural ensemble, executed in three stages between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, occupy a special place within the preserved heritage. The article highlights the development of mural painting against the background of historical events and advances a number of hypotheses concerning the possible dating of the different stages of the painting. On the basis of art-historical analysis, the construction of the nave of the church is dated to the fourteenth century. This assumption is corroborated by historical documents indicating that in 1334 the Horiany community paid tithes as a parish. Taking into account the characteristics of medieval modes of thinking and the specific features of contemporary artistic practice, the paintings of the three eastern apses of the Horiany Rotunda are interpreted as a kind of three-part Latin altar, unified by a single concept and realized through mural painting. Drawing on the research of B. Szokacs in the village of Lónya (Hungary), the author of the article concludes that the earliest stage of mural painting in the Horiany Rotunda dates to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. The final stage of the painting belongs to the fifteenth century and is represented by three compositions executed in the Gothic style. It is noteworthy that the mural painting of the Horiany Rotunda reveals artistic tendencies more characteristic of Italy than of regions north of the Alps. On the basis of historical evidence, these features are associated with the activities of the Drugeth family of counts, who originated from Naples and held the Uzhanska župa (Ung County) from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.