The Gračanica Monastery, situated near the city of Lipljan, in Kosovo, is one of the last monumental endowments of the Serbian king Milutin Nemania. Built in the year 1321, the Monastery, now dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, represents the peak of the medieval Serbian architecture of Byzantine tradition. The church has a double cross-in-square plan, one inside the other, with five domes and with volumes whose arrangement becomes more and more intricate in the upper zone. In the Gračanica church there are three layers of painting preserved. The oldest frescoes of the church, painted in 1321, are of an extraordinary value and can be numbered between the most known and appreciated Byzantine paintings ever made. In its dens iconographic program, with many small scenes, one can also see some particularities, due to the fact that the painters also inspired from the apocryphal literature, not only from the Scripture. Through what they painted in Gračanica and in other several Serbian churches, the Thessalonian masters Mihail Astrapas and Eutychios remain some of the most famous names in the entire Byzantine art.

Keywords:

Gračanica, Serbian frescoes, byzantine, Mihail Astrapas, Eutychios

ALIN TRIFA