Cross-cultural features in medieval art : the case of the early fourteenth-century wall paintings at the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

Abstract

The Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem served as an important Georgian religious center from the eleventh century to the eighteenth. Inscriptions surviving in wall paintings adorning the interior of the main church suggest that the murals date to 1643–1644, when Abbot Nicephorus had the monastery renovated. The paintings consist of at least three layers, however, the earliest of which – i.e., the one considered here – appears to have been commissioned between 1305 and 1327 by Georgian King Constantine i. The murals offer a complex blend of progressive and conservative trends associated with Orthodox visual art, Western traditions, and Orthodox-Latin fusions. They thus provide yet another reminder of the role the Holy Land played in shaping Christian culture and therefore deserve to be addressed in broader scholarly discourse on medieval interactions and cultural identities.