Armenian manuscript tradition and the period of the Armenian Kingdom of Silesia
The content of Armenian manuscripts includes religious scriptures, historical narratives and commentaries, chronicles, poetry and philosophical narratives, systematically showing Armenian culture from the Middle Ages to modern times. Among them, Armenian manuscripts with decorative paintings are the most important. These manuscripts are a complete artistic account of the Armenian worldview over a long historical period, and an important account of the Armenians' understanding of their geographical knowledge and their relationship with neighboring populations.
Although Armenia also has a strong tradition of sculpture and church frescoes, no art form has not only touched on all aspects of Armenian social traditions in terms of subject matter, but has remained at a certain level for more than a decade. At the same time, art forms such as mosaic decoration, enamel, ivory carving, etc., which were common in the European continent in the Middle Ages, were completely absent from Armenia. For the most part, the decorative painting of manuscripts is not regarded as an art form, but the Gospel manuscripts are displayed as sacred objects: the more noble and beautiful the decoration, the more religious power can be revealed. These manuscripts are not merely texts that convey information, they are in a sense the embodiment of miracles, monuments to the human imagination, pantheons of Christian saints on pedestal paper, microcosms of beautiful paradise gardens.
The vast majority of decorative painting of Armenian manuscripts is religious, in contrast to the Byzantine and Islamic artistic traditions that are adjacent to Armenian culture——— and the decorative painting of manuscripts in the latter two artistic traditions covers a large number of secular art themes, including epics, romance, history, and science. Religious life occupies an extremely important place in Armenian society, or at least as reflected in the vast majority of preserved texts and works of art. A notable exception is the romanticized artistic representation of Alexander the Great's horse career, which originated in a romantic text erroneously attributed to Callisthenes' Greek historical work written in the 4th century BC. Throughout the long Middle Ages, various literary works adapted from the legends of Alexander were popular in Europe and the Near East, and Armenian paintings on this subject are among the earliest known works. In Armenian art, however, even Alexander the Great is endowed with a variety of qualities recognized by Christianity.
Armenian religious books with decorative paintings can be roughly divided into two types: prayer books used in liturgical and communion ceremonies, and religious scriptures. Books used in liturgy include hymns (Sharaknots', "Hymnal"), Bible verses (Chashots', "theLectionary"), liturgical calendars (Yaysmawurk', "theMenologium"), and liturgical laws (Mashlots', "theRitual"). Book illustration can be roughly divided into two types: one is a stand-alone portrait of a saint used on books such as the Calendar of Saints, which is juxtaposed with the text of the prayer book, usually located at the edge of the page; When depicting Christian festivals, such as Christmas or Easter, book illustrations use appropriate New Testament imagery, such as the birth and resurrection of Jesus. These portraits take up the entire page. The latter form of image would be used more often in painted books about the life of Jesus.
Among the Armenian manuscript images, the most similar to the rest of Christendom are the Gospel images. Images of subjects such as the Annunciation and the Passion of Jesus were widely circulated and fairly consistent throughout medieval Christendom. The drawings of the same subject in medieval Armenian manuscripts are fully recognized by the painters of Paris and Constantinople. If we look at medieval art as a whole, the Armenian pictorial style can be seen as a branch of it, rather than as a separate art form. However, Armenian medieval painting still includes a great deal of subtleties unique to Armenian art forms.
Armenian Gospel illustrations can be broadly divided into four categories, each with corresponding iconographic principles. There is usually a ten-page Gospel comparison table, an indexing system created by the Greek theologian and bishop of Palestine, Eusebius of Caesarea. By indexing this comparison table, scholars and historians can compare passages from four Gospels that are similar about the life of Jesus. This comparison table appears in a large number of medieval gospel manuscripts, as well as in Byzantine and Western European manuscripts. In the Armenian Gospel manuscripts, however, the decoration and illustration of this is in a very different and complex oriental style, which includes a large number of very subtle color and graphic variations, as well as various floral graphics to decorate the tables with architectural borders.
In particular, only in Armenia do theologians explore the mysterious meaning of the Gospel comparison table, zigzagging into earthly churches that are neither touchable nor visible. Therefore, theologians encourage the viewer's gaze to wander through complex and abstract patterns and to slowly contemplate the mystery of salvation from God. This symbolic system is extremely open, and each symbol can have multiple interpretations. Nershes Shnorhali described the Gospel comparison table with decorative paintings as a visual preparation for the viewer to learn the true meaning of the Gospels.
