Review article

Pluteus from the Chancel Screen in the Sanctuary of St Tryphon in Kotor

Pavuša Vežić ; Department of Art History, University of Zadar, Croatia

Abstract

The pluteus from the chancel screen, presumably from the sanctuary of St Tryphon in Kotor, is a sort of compilation of specific visual and symbolic motifs and their combinations as identified in various chancel screens in churches of the Adriatic cultural circle. An especially interesting element is the panel on the left side of the pluteus, with a geometrical base consisting of twelve circles, three in the height and four in the length of the composition. The stonemason’s skill transformed them into an interesting iconographic solution, consisting of rings of interconnected triangles lined along the edge of the panel and rhombuses distributed in its field. The triangles and the rhombuses have concavely curving, interlacing sides that create circular interspaces next to them, each of them featuring two flame-like leaves facing each other. This motif is rare in pre-Romanesque ornamentation in the Adriatic. However, it is typical of the Romanic milieus in Istria and Dalmatia, such as Novigrad, Rab, Zadar, and Kotor. Plutei with such forms can be dated to the last decades or even years of the 8th century or the early 9th century.
Another characteristic ornament in these plutei is the trefoil lily in the centre of each rhombus, as well as many triangles. The rhombus resembles a cross in itself, often accentuated through a smaller cross in the midst of its field. Examples of such combinations are found in the early Byzantine decorative sculpture of Ravenna, inspired by Lombard and Carolingian art, and may have thence reached the Romanic milieus of Istria and Dalmatia.
I would argue that it was from this direction that such motifs entered the hinterland of the ancient Croatian state, as well as other Sclavinias. There they were used alongside similar as well as entirely different ornaments. The plutei there likewise feature the motif of a lily in a rhombus, yet without the flame-like leaves in the inter-spaces, which are substituted through various types of knots, pretzels, rosettes, and particularly often concentric circles, the so-called “Korbboden ornaments” accompanied by clusters of grapes, occasionally with birds picking at the berries. These motifs, especially the last one, indicate that honeycomb meshes, designed almost in the form of iconoclastic geometrical abstractions, nevertheless represented quite figuratively the True Vine marking the boundary of the enclosed Garden or Vineyard. This is clearly seen in the plutei from the Tragurian workshop active during the reign of Duke Trpimir, the one of the Master of the Pluteum of Koljane, or the Benedictine workshop active during the reign of Duke Branimir.
In its own way, the rhombus with concavely curving sides – a motif that has attracted surprisingly little attention in the analyses of early Christian and early medieval art in the Croatian lands – symbolizes the Cross, which allows us to call it, at least tentatively, “the rhomboid cross”. Moreover, one may say that, in the reliefs from liturgical contexts in the Adriatic cultural circles, such crosses (combined either with one or with several rhom- buses) were used more than any other symbol, especially in the early medieval plutei dated to the 8th to 11th centuries. It is therefore, figuratively speaking, the “common feature” of most artworks presented here.
The panel to the right is outlined by two arcades, with a cross underneath each of them. Here one again encounters the typical motifs of early Christian and early Byzantine art, combined with the Lombard and Carolingian variants of the themes. These models reached the Romanic communities of Istria and Dalmatia, and through them the hinterland of the Sclavinias. Nevertheless, analogies in the composition with two panels in a pluteus, at least one featuring two arcades, seem particularly striking between Zadar and Kotor. The fragments of marble plutei that were subsequently incorporated into the main altar of St Anastasia’s church are evidence of the fact that there were at least three cases in Zadar that may be considered analogous to the one in Kotor in their ornamentation. Besides the pillars, capitals, arcades, and crosses, the similarities include the motif of the Garden of Eden under the cross as the Tree of Life, which resembles the acanthus flower. This motif is also present in some ciboria produced by the workshop of Boka Kotorska.
However, if one also considers the previously described mesh with rings of interlaced triangles and rhombuses, especially in Zadar and Kotor, as well as the motif of the True Vine in the pilasters of the chancel screen in Zadar, Kotor, and elsewhere, the striking parallels lead to a conclusion about the relatively similar motifs in analogous liturgical installations. These, again, indicate an exchange of stonemasonry patterns in the period of early pre-Romanesque art, especially between these two important early medieval Dalmatian cities. This highly intriguing topic certainly deserves further study, albeit with due caution.

Keywords

chancel screen; pluteus; triangle; rhombus; cross; acanthus flower

Hrčak ID:

170695

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/170695

Publication date:

19.12.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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