On the style of the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes*

The article attempts to give a thorough description of the style of the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes and to draw analogies for their artistic manner and single figures. They appear to reveal the closest similarity with some miniatures found in Greek manuscripts of the late eleventh century. Several common artistic methods were used in the Bachkovo frescoes and in the monumental painting of that time as well. They also include some motifs, which were well-known to artists of the second half of the twelfth century. The style of the Ossuary frescoes has been correctly described as classical in most of the perti-nent studies. All the components of this style took shape already in the late eleventh century; however, it is not impossible that the frescoes were created later, in the twelfth century.

land belonged either to the Byzantine Empire, or to the Bulgarian State. 3 The Ossuary is situated on a steep slope of a hill, about 400 metres from the monastery (Fig. 1). It is a twostorey building with an almost rectangular plan. Its north side measures 18.18 m and the west 8.50 m. 4 The south side of the lower storey is embedded into the hillside. It was used for burials, while the upper one functioned as a funerary chapel. 5 The programme of decoration of the Bachkovo Ossuary has no analogies among the monuments of Byzantine art, which have come down to us. This fact is due to the uniqueness of the building of this kind, i.e. of the church used especially for funerary purposes, decorated with frescoes. 6 Its main subject is the Resurrection of the Dead at the end of time and the Salvation of the Righteous. Only a few scenes are located on the walls of the tiny spaces of the upper church (Fig. 2) and the crypt; 7 at the same time there is a great number of saints, mostly prelates and monks, who are represented as intercessors for the deceased at the Last Judgment. Spiritual insight as an objective of monastic life and a result of the vitae of saints was one of the main aspects of Byzantine theology and art since the early eleventh century. A special intertimes; one of its most recent editions is: P. Gautier, Le typikon du sébaste Grégoire Pakourianos, REB 42 (1984) 5-145. 3 Bakalova et al.,op. cit.,10. 4 Ibid., 29 (V. Kolarova). 5 Though some graves were found there too. 6 The iconographic programme of the Bachkovo Ossuary was thoroughly studied and described by A. Grishin (idem,Bačkovo Ossuary frescoes, and E. Bakalova (eadem et al.,The Ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery,. 7 In the upper church there are the Virgin Enthroned with the Child and two archangels in the conch; the Melismos under it; the Communion of the Apostles on the lateral walls near the apse (the Distribution of Bread on the north, and the Distribution of Wine on the south); the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Baptism and Raising of Lazarus on the south wall, and the Entry into Jerusalem, Threnos and Myrroforoi on the north respectively; at the west the Koimesis was painted, and a part of the Transfiguration above it. In the narthex, on the east wall the Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel (or simply, the Theophanic vision) was placed, with a fourteenth century image of the Hodegetria in the lunette. In the lower church, there is a Deesis with Christ Enthroned in the conch; Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones on the west wall of the naos; and on the walls and vaults of the narthex a detailed composition of the Last Judgement. est in the images of saints can be clearly observed in the monuments of that time. 8 Their numerous images appear in the mosaic and fresco ensembles of the second third of the eleventh century 9 and in miniatures of menolo-8 This interest in the images of saints probably resulted from the same factors that influenced the formation of the so-called 'ascetic style' of the 1030s-1040s. Prof. O. Popova believes that one of them could be the sermons of St. Symeon the New Theologian. Cf. O. S. Popova, V. D. Sarab'i anov, Mozaiki i freski Svi atoĭ Sofii Kievskoĭ, Moskva 2017, 227. 9 Thus in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Kiev there are about 800 surviving images of saints. These images are the subject of the second gia 10 and psalters with marginal illustrations. 11 Grishin writes that "it is predominantly monastic programme that features heavily relatively obscure monastic saints". 12 He volume of the edition of the mosaics and frescoes of St. Sophia, which has just been prepared for publication: N. V. Gerasimenko, A. V. Zakharova, V. D. Sarab'i anov, Izobrazhenii a svi atykh v Sofii Kievskoĭ (in press). 10 More Byzantine illustrated menologia have come down to us from the eleventh century than from any other period. 11 L. Mariès, L' irruption des saints dans l' illustration du psautier byzantin, AB 68 (1950) 153-162. 12 Grishin, Bačkovo Ossuary frescoes, 129. attributes it to the influence of Mount Athos, which the brothers Apasios and Gregorios Pakourinoi visited twice, one time in 1074, prior to the re-founding of the Bachkovo Monastery. 13 Nevertheless, other images could hardly be included in the programme of decoration of the Ossuary -its space is too small: it was easier and more rational to put the images of saints on the buttresses and in the rather narrow surfaces between them. The same is true for the use of simple and concise iconographic schemes -complex compositions could not be placed on the walls retaining the normal size and the overall harmony of the whole ensemble.
The Ossuary and its frescoes were restored in the early 2000s with the sponsorship of the Foundation Anastasios G. Leventis. Unfortunately, they were not only conserved but also heavily tinted, and to get the idea of their original style and their dating became more complicated.
Most of the Ossuary frescoes were painted at the same time, during the Middle Byzantine period, as evidenced by their style. 14 The interior of the crypt is not 13 Grishin, Bačkovo Ossuary frescoes, 12-13. 14 The second period of work on the Ossuary frescoes is the middle of the fourteenth century. Then some of them, lost or almost lost by that time, were repainted (e.g. the angels and apostles on the south vault of the narthex of the crypt), and those with Tsar Ivan Alexander, Sts  spacious, it fits a human figure. The walls are divided into separate zones and panels with ornamental or simple red bands (Fig. 3). These compartments follow the architectural structure of the building. Human images are almost life-sized and usually slightly elongated, while few of them have much more elongated proportions. According to the data adduced in Grishin's dissertation, the proportions in the frescoes of the Bachkovo Ossuary are, as a rule, from 1:7 to 1:8, 15 except the images of the archangels in the conch of the upper church ( Fig. 4) and that of the Penitent Thief on the east wall of the crypt narthex ( Fig. 5). 16  A. Grishin singles out four layers of frescoes (idem, Bačkovo Ossuary frescoes, 207-208) but this view raises some doubts. The correct opinion expressed by most scholars deals with only two layers -the earlier one, which has been variously dated from the late eleventh to the late twelfth century (v. below), and the second, which belongs to the time of Tsar Ivan Alexander. 15 Ibid., 214-215. 16 Grishin does not mention the proportions of these figures, but their head-to-body proportions are not more than 1:9. E. Bakalova does space; single images and scenes are always perfectly inscribed in it. Compositions of the scenes are simple and easy to perceive. In the upper church, the Gospel scenes are placed into the painted trifoliate arches (Fig. 6), which have the same outlines as the one molded in relief, framing the entrance from the narthex to the naos. Owing to this device and to the painted ciboria in the centres of the compositions of the Communion of the Apostles and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, their inner balance is emphasized 17 (Fig. 8). The scenes are mostly static; movements of the protagonists (when shown) are quiet, measured, solemn.
Figures are treated three-dimensionally but look weightless; they have small feet and hands. They are dressed in free-flowing clothes with flexible folds that follow the body structure. The clothes also seem weightless, as if they were made of silk, permeated with light, not discuss the proportions of specific figures, like Grishin, but generally they are claimed to be 1:8, 1:9 and 1:10 (eadem et al., The Ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery, 112-113). Nevertheless, it should be noted that most of the figures in the frescoes are only slightly elongated. 17 Grishin, Bačkovo Ossuary frescoes, 213. 46 which plays on their surface forming fine designs. These designs do not seem entirely artificial and do not follow their own inner laws that can often be observed in monuments of the late twelfth century. The modelling mainly corresponds to the conception of daylight; the light builds forms, makes them three-dimensional, and at the same time weightless.
Postures are natural and graceful. The faces are oval with medium-sized regular features, in most cases drawn during the last restoration campaign. If we assume that these recent re-paintings more or less follow the original design, some preliminary observations can be made. The faces belong to the traditional Komnenian type with crooked noses; elderly and middle-aged people have high wrinkled foreheads and a thoughtful, somewhat detached or slightly anxious facial expression (Fig. 7). Some faces have a more distinct, severe or tragic expression, but most are neutral and calm.
Based on the manner of treatment of faces, four groups of images can be distinguished. The first, which includes the images of the archangels in the conch of the upper church (Fig. 9), the deacons in the niches near the apse and, probably, also the saints in the apse, and a group of the Righteous advancing towards the Gates of Paradise in the Last Judgement in the crypt. In these images their three-dimensionality is emphasized, the chiaroscuro modelling is strong with smooth colouring (unless these characteristics are the result of the recent restoration). The second group includes most of the images and, perhaps, all the scenes in the upper church. Here we find mostly oval faces with fine features, less three-dimensional, with mainly graphic treatment (e.g. the red strokes on the cheekbones to show blush (Fig. 10) similar to reddish parallel lines on the cheeks of the Empress Eirene in the mosaic in the south gallery of St. Sophia in Constantinople) . The images of the Virgin with angels and the Penitent Thief on the east wall of the crypt and Ezekiel's Vision in the Valley of Dry Bones on the west wall of the naos belong to the third group (Fig. 11). The painter who created these images made them relief, working in a pastose, loose manner. Another artist was responsible for the images in the apse of the crypt. They are more expressive and ascetic (Fig. 12); on the faces painted by this artist there are sharp white brushstrokes, reminding those of late twelfth century works of art, like the frescoes in the churches of the Annunciation on lake Myachino ('in Arckazhi'), the Savior on Nereditsa, in the refectory of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos etc., but their character is still somewhat smoother, and the brushstrokes themselves look smaller and better follow the forms than in the frescoes of the late twelfth century. 18 Architectural structures and pieces of furniture were painted in a flatter and more abstract manner. There are few details except for the figures, with only those shown that are necessary to interpret the scenes.
The colours used are not very numerous: red, blue, golden ochre, various tints of green, purple, umber, and white. The painters used primarily chiaroscuro modelling, sometimes combined with dark, mostly brown lines and spots in shadows, and white strokes on the lighted surfaces. Generally, the colouring is not very bright; the colour spots, especially green and red ones, tend to alternate.
A. Grabar has justly described the style of the Bachkovo frescoes as 'classical' . 19 There is nothing exaggerated or grotesque about it; lucidity, lack of sophistication, proportionality and harmony are accentuated in them. It is by no means an easy task to find close analogies for them in Byzantine painting, and this fact has caused heated debates about their dating. 20 18 This method of treatment that we often come across in late twelfth century Byzantine painting had already been used in miniatures of the late eleventh -early twelfth century, for instance in the images of the  20 Works of Byzantine art, in which the classical style prevails, are sometimes difficult to attribute to one or another specific narrow period, unlike those, where painters used more expressive approaches. The periods of circulation of these or those 'unclassical' methods are, as a rule, limited and known to scholars, while the classically treated images were always in demand, especially in the eleventh and twelfth Probably the first to propose the late eleventh century dating for the Bachkovo frescoes were B. Filov 21 and N. Mavrodinov. 22 It was accepted by several other Bulgarian scholars; among them were Boschkov, 23 Krestev and Zakhariev. 24   to the twelfth-century painter from this city. 31 In a recent paper G. Gerov argues that the frescoes were painted in the 1150s-1160s. 32 V. N. Lazarev dated them to the second half of the twelfth century, though he pointed out that 'faces are shaped with broad and smooth brushstrokes, in which there lacks the emphasized linear stylization so typical of the murals of 31 A. Xyngopoulos   In the ensembles of the second half of the twelfth century belonging to the classical trend, such as the frescoes of the Church of St. Demetrius in Vladimir, we observe less interest in rendering three-dimensionality, more inclination towards graphic treatment and linear sharpness of images, sharper contrasts and a sophisticated design of lights on the faces and clothes (if compared to the smoother modelling in the works of art of the late eleventh century). Probably, some resemblance of the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes with those in Vladimir is partly due to the poor state of preservation of both and to the similar colouring in the images of angels and apostles in the compositions of the Last Judgement in both churches (Ill. 13,14). With the works of art executed in the so-called dynamic style of the late twelfth century the Bachkovo frescoes have much less in common.
The search for the methods of dematerialization of forms that had started in Byzantine art at least in the early sixth century -and E. Bakalova writes that it is a point of resemblance between the Bachkovo and Nerezi frescoescontinued more intensively after the Macedonian Renaissance, and especially in the second quarter and then in the second half of the eleventh century. Thus, many methods of depiction of the ethereal and spiritual were known to artists by the early twelfth century and were being further developed until the end of the century.
Some similarities between the faces in the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes and those in the Church of St. Panteleimon in Nerezi occur, but the stronger stylization of the latter makes us perhaps rather think of the use of the same facial types by the artists of both ensembles. Their stylistic treatment differs quite noticeably. I was able to find two cases of real resemblance of the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes and the monuments of the second half of the twelfth century. One of them was adduced by E. Bakalova in her article of 1973, 38 which deals with the similarity in the elaboration of folds and partly of the posture of an angel in the scene of the Baptism in Bachkovo (Fig. 15) and Đurđevi Stupovi (Fig. 16). However, their design in the latter church is somewhat sharper and more contrasted, and the posture is less natural and more strained. Another work of art that should be mentioned here is an icon of the Virgin Eleusa (Agiossoritissa) in the Museum of the Monastery of Agios Neophytos near Paphos in Cyprus (1183) (Fig. 17), which resembles the image of the Theotokos in the crypt apse (Fig. 18), but the image in the icon looks more tragic and expressive.
No monument that has come down to us from the second half of the eleventh century -early twelfth century can be attributed to Constantinopolitan painters accord-  parts of the Byzantine world -in Veljusa, Venice, Trieste, Ateni, and not far from Bachkovo, in Patalenitsa -are remarkable for some local peculiarities, which make them quite noticeably different from the Ossuary frescoes. Although sometimes some points of resemblance may be drawn [e.g. in the images of the Righteous walking to the Gates of Paradise in the mosaic on the west wall of S. Maria Assunta in Torcello and on the narthex wall in Bachkovo; modelling of faces of angels in the Ateni fresco (Fig. 19) and in the one from the Ossuary (Fig. 20), etc.], the closest analogies to single features and images of the Bachkovo frescoes can be found in Byzantine miniatures of the late eleventh century.
In the miniatures of Greek manuscripts there are many figures with elongated or even considerably elongated proportions, as for instance in the Menologion (British Library, Add. 11870), the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus (Bodleian Library, Canon. 103) and the Tetraevangelion [Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana,gr. Z. 27 (=341)]. Bright strokes of light on the clothes, which make them weightless and create the impression of a fabric permeated with light, can be observed in a number of manuscripts from the The image of the Theotokos on the vault of the crypt narthex (Fig. 21) may be compared to the image of Hannah with Samuel in a miniature of the Psalter and New Testament (Dumbarton Oaks, Ms. 3), fol. 75 (Fig.  22) of c. 1084. Her image in the lunette of the narthex looks similar to that of Sophia in the last miniature of the same manuscript (fol. 269v). 39 The image of Christ in the scene of the Distribution of Wine on the south wall of the upper church resembles His image, which type had probably taken shape several decades earlier, in the Gospel Lectionary (EBE, gr. 2645), fol. 166v, 40 and the Evangelists' portraits in the Tetraevangelion (Great Lavra, cod. 15), fols. 3v, 122v or 321v. The profile image of Paul the Apostle in the scene of the Communion of the Apostles (Fig. 23) resembles somewhat his image in the miniature of the Dumbarton Oaks codex (fol. 269v) (Fig. 24) 26). The facial types, especially those of the elders who are shown in the Bachkovo Ossuary frescoes as similar to sages or philosophers, can be found in many miniatures of the late eleventh century. 41 Thus, the frescoes of the first layer in the Bachkovo Ossuary have no close analogies among works of Byzantine art. Their predominantly classical style and re-paintings made during the recent restoration make the problem of their dating even more convoluted. It seems that almost all (if not all) of the artistic methods used in them were known to artists already in the late eleventh century; they 41 In a fresco transferred from the church of St. Theodore in Houlou to the Ecclesiastical Museum in Paphos there is a similar facial type in the fresco showing John Climacus (c. 1100).
can be observed in a number of miniatures of that time. However, it is possible that the frescoes were created later, in the twelfth century, when Byzantine artists repeatedly applied the classical approach to the treatment of images.
In 1114 the Byzantine army led by Alexios I Komnenos was stationed in Plovdiv, where its main purpose was the struggle against the heresies of the Paulicians and Bogomils and the strengthening of the emperor's power in the Bulgarian lands. Fighting against the heretics with their allies the Pechenegs, Gregorios Pakourianos was killed in battle. An image of Alexios Komnenos was painted on a south-west pillar on the lower storey of the monastery church of the Archangels; according to a legend, he was its ktetor. 42 Taking into account the close ties of the monastery with the Byzantine court, it can be hypothesized that the political situation in the monastery in the late eleventh -early twelfth century could have contributed to the arrival of Greek painters from Constantinople, while very little is known about the events of the second half of the twelfth century.