Цикъл Чудеса Богородични в стенописите на риломанастирския католикон
The Miracles of the Virgin Cycle in Wall Paintings from the Catholicon in Rila Monastery

Summary/Abstract: In 1846 the Samokov icon painter Dimitur Hristov painted a cycle of seven scenes illustrating the miracles of the Virgin around an image of the Mother of God Axion Estin ("It is truly meet") in the blind dome of the open narthex of the catholicon at Rila Monastery. The scenes are taken from an exception ally popular book Amartolon sotiria, or The Redemption of Sinners, by the Mount Athos monk Agapios Landos. The Slavic translation of the book was well-known at Rila Monastery, as well as in the icon painter’s hometown of Samokov. Episodes were selected that offered a model for monks and worshipers’s behavior, as well as those connected to the famous sanctuary’ Zoodochos Pege (Mother of God the Life-giving Fountain). All the scenes have a logical connection to the wall paintings situated around the blind dome. This is the earliest cycle of its type in Bulgarian art, in which the icon painter illustrates texts that did contain visual models.

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