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Asinou across Time
Studies in the Architecture and Murals of the Panagia Phorbiotissa, Cyprus
Annemarie Weyl Carr
Harvard University Press, 2012
The church of Asinou is among the most famous in Cyprus. Built around 1100, the edifice, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is decorated with accretions of images, from the famous fresco cycle executed shortly after initial construction to those made in the early seventeenth century. During this period the church served the adjacent monastery of the Mother of God ton Phorbion ("of the vetches"), and was subject to Byzantine, Lusignan (1191-1474), Venetian (1474-1570), and Ottoman rule. This monograph is the first on one of Cyprus's major diachronically painted churches. Written by an international team of renowned scholars, the book sets the accumulating phases of Asinou's art and architecture in the context of the changing fortunes of the valley, of Cyprus, and of the eastern Mediterranean. Chapters include the first continuous history of the church and its immediate setting; a thorough analysis of its architecture; editions, translations, and commentary on the poetic inscriptions; art-historical studies of the post-1105/6 images in the narthex and nave; a detailed comparative analysis of the physical and chemical properties of the frescoes; and a diachronic table of paleographical forms.
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The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera, Cyprus
The Paintings and Their Painterly Significance
David Winfield and June Winfield
Harvard University Press, 2003
The monastery church at Lagoudhera, Cyprus, is notable for an almost complete decoration of Byzantine wall painting, dated to 1192. These paintings present the finest surviving example of the elegant linear style of the second half of the twelfth century. In this work, David and June Winfield discuss the language of Byzantine church decoration, methods of plastering, proportional rules, system of coloring, and the working methods of the Byzantine painter.
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