ROMANIAN RELIGIOUS ART IN THE XV-XVII CENTURIES
ROMANIAN RELIGIOUS ART IN THE XV-XVII CENTURIES

Summary/Abstract: Orthodoxy in medieval Moldavia generated natural and direct relations with Bulgaria, Serbia, Mount Athos and the Byzantium. The use of Slavonic both in church and in the cultural realm points to the fact that Byzantine religious literature reached Moldavia via the Southern Slavic area. Romanian culture in its Slavic form is the result of a complex and extensive synthesis of components originating in the Orthodox traditions of the Byzantium, Mount Athos, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as influences from Catholicism and Protestantism that reached Moldavia via Venice, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary, all mixed together in an original unity. At a time when large areas of the former Byzantine Empire were under Ottoman rule and had little contribution to the post-Byzantine and pan-Orthodox cultural and artistic life, the Romanian principalities enjoyed a “flourishing” of the Byzantine-Balkan art. The Moldavian monasteries erected in the 15th – 17th centuries become major cultural centers, as they enjoy their own library, painting and embroidery shops, which have an overwhelming importance in the preservation of the religious traditions and Byzantine icon painting and embroidery styles. Romanian museums and monasteries preserve one of the richest treasures of medieval embroidery in Southeastern Europe, a region where the Byzantine artistic and cultural heritage has a considerable influence.

• Details
• Contents