Lidov, Aleksej M.: The mural paintings of Akhtala (Moscow, 1991)

The present work is the first publication and
monographic study of the most significant
mediaevai wai! paintings in northern Armenia.
The main church ..of the Akhtaia Monastery was
decorated in the eariy 13th-century when it
passed to the Armenian Chaicedonian
confession and the area was incorporated
within the Georgian kingdom. This historicai


context accounts for the many originai features
dispiaycd by these paintings made at a cuiturai
crossroads where the Byzantine, Armenian and
Georgian traditions met. In chapter 1 Dr Lidov
gives a comprehensive anaiysis of ati the
avaiiabte historicai sources. This permits not
oniy a reconstruction of the history of the
monastery and the unusual personality of the
donor of the frescoes, but aiso a dating of some
precision as to when they were painted.
Chapter 2 provides a detailed study of the
iconographic programme. Using the methods
of modern interpretationai iconography the
author singies out distinctive elements and, by
setting them in the spiritual context of their
time, obtains valuable historical evidence to
supplement existing, and compensate for lost,
written sources. The author pays much
attention to new liturgical motifs of church
decoration in the late 12th and early 13th
centuries. For the first time the paintings have
been systematically considered as the works of
different hands. Eight distinctive stylistic
manners arc distinguished and described in
chapter 3.