See the Book

HIERARCH (St Athanasios the Great ?)

Drawing (two-sided ?). Charcoal
99 x 28.5 cm.
Second half of 19th century
Industrial paper

The drawing, with limited mechanical damage, comprises four shcets of industrial paper glued together.
At a later phase, the work has been glued to card.

The tall, full-bodied figure of the hierarch, with the characteristics of an old man and luxuriant beard, is imbued with sacerdotal formality. He wears prelatic vestments, blesses with the right hand and holds a gospel book with elaborate cover in the left.

The strict frontal pose of the hierarch in combination with the perspective rendering of his vestments, refers to a series of representations of hierarchs, in works of late Post-Byzantine times (19th century) which were crystallized in Greece¹ and in the southern Balkans.² The origin of these representations can be found in en- gravings, the earliest known example being the engraving of St Nicholas with scenes of his life (1746), by the Serbian painter Christophoros Zefarovits.³ St John Chrysostom is represented in similar manner in Athonite engravings⁴ and in icons⁵ of the Three Hierarchs, as well as St Nicholas in two engravings (second half of 19th century), one of which belonged initially to an archive of painters from Chioniades.⁶ There is an analogous representation of St Athanasios (19th century) on the iconostasis of the metropolitan church of Ioannina,⁷ which is dedicated to him, confirming the influence of engravings as models in elaborating a common iconographic type for rendering Church Fathers during the nineteenth century. The spare drawing, with the clean, firm lines, differs stylistically from the above examples. It creates the impression of a more static and flat figure, notwithstanding the attempted perspective rendering of the vestments. In this respect the closest representations to the drawing are those of Sts Eleutherios and Spyridon in the church of the Dormition of the Virgin at Tsepelovo (1865) and of the Three Hierarchs in the church of St George at Negades (1874), works by the painter Anastasios Papacostas-Marinas from Chioniades.⁸ The similarities in the drawing and the icons, even in details such as the decoration on the omophoria, epigonatia, bindings of the gospel books, and prelatic mitres, permit the attribution of the drawing to Anastasios Marinas and its dating in the nineteenth century. The saint depicted should probably be identified as Athanasios of Alexandria, since his portrait features recall a corresponding mural painting by the same artist, in the church of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at Tsepelovo, (1864).⁹

1 Συλλογή Εικόνων 1992. no. 11 (Α. Tourta). Ύδρα 2009, nο. 25 (Α. Katselaki).
2 Matakieva-Lilkova 1994, no. 66, no. 80. Paskaleva 1987, no. 156.
3 Davidov 1999, 24-25, figs 13-14. See also Papastratos 1990, vol. I, 272.
4 Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 367-370.
5 Μακρής 1991, 59-60, fig. on p. 97. Τσιγάρας 2004, 43, 6. 10. Γαλατσιάνοι 2005. 30 fig. 25.
6 Papastratos 1990, vol. I, no. 291. Maxeric 1981, 58, fig. 23.
7 Unpublished.
8 Unpublished.
9 Unpublished.