History of Armenian images
A series of illustrations about the life of Jesus. In Armenian manuscripts prior to the 12th century, this series of illustrations follows the Gospel comparison table. However, since the 14th century they have been placed before comparative tables as prefaces to texts, which is very different from Byzantine and Western manuscripts. The earliest series of only three or four images usually included the sacrifice of Abraham and the coronation of the Virgin, while manuscripts from the 14th century later added many scenes of Christ performing miracles and scenes of the Last Judgment.
If there is no series of illustrations in the preface of a manuscript, it is likely that the artist chose the method of intertext illustration, that is, adding illustrations next to the scenes described in the text. These illustrations are sometimes full-page illustrations, sometimes quarter- or half-page illustrations, breaking the article; There are also frontispiece illustrations, which densely present illustrations of various scenes in a sequence; Some are small illustrations with brief margins.
Portrait in the Gospels. The fact that the early Armenian Gospel manuscripts depict four gospel writers in one place is important because the Gospel illustrations in the Greek and Latin traditions never show such scenes. This Armenian group portrait conveys a theological meaning, emphasizing the mutual fingerprints between the four Gospels, in line with the meaning conveyed by the Gospel comparison table.
Armenian manuscripts from the 12th century onwards, like those elsewhere in Christendom, draw each gospel writer individually on the left page of the folio, facing the beginning of the text on the right page. In such portraits, the Gospel writers usually appear as scribes, sitting at a table with a variety of copying utensils in the writing room. Western European art was introduced as a symbol of the author of the Gospels with animal figures, which appear both on portrait pages and on the initial letters at the beginning of the text. This technique was particularly common in the Kingdom of Silesia, which had extensive cultural exchanges with the Crusader states. The buildings in the background of the portrait point to four great cities: Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus.
Tribute portrait of the manuscript sponsor. Tribute portraits sometimes follow the Gospel comparison table, sometimes between or at the end of the preface series, and also in the middle of the text. They are usually portraits of the sponsor himself or including his family, usually painted as prayers or dedicating the Gospel to Christ or Our Lady. They are the most secular images in the Gospels, from which the viewer can learn about the clothing of Armenians of each era and the angle from which they long to be presented to the viewer, conveying important socio-cultural messages.
Regardless of the era and social context, the narrative illustrations on the manuscripts of the Armenian Gospels are by no means mere decoration, but merely for exhibition and enrichment. These illustrations represent the content itself that needs to be conveyed in the text of the manuscript, and can also appear as comments that cannot be conveyed by words. They emphasize certain passages of text and also determine how they are viewed as some narratives of illustration. Hermeneutics has always been the most important part of theological study in Armenian seminaries, and two-thirds of Armenian manuscripts are biblical texts and commentaries on scriptural interpretation. Therefore, the commentary and interpretation effect achieved by the manuscript illustration should also be carefully experienced by the viewer.
Cultural centers outside the Kingdom of Great Armenia were often the focus of manuscript compilation, and many of the different cultural influences made the manuscript style unique. Among them, the Armenian Kingdom of Silesia is the most famous source of medieval manuscripts, and it is also the place where most of the Armenian manuscripts in the Bieti Library were compiled or transcribed. Here is a brief introduction to these cultural centers:
The Armenian Kingdom of Silesia (Giligio Hayots T'agavorut'yun, Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia) was a state of Armenian refugees who fled during the Seljuk Turkic invasion of Armenia in the 11th century. Silicia is close to Alexandre Reta Bay in the Mediterranean. The Prince of Cilicia was founded in 1080 by the Rubenid Dynasty. The dynasty was a branch of the Bagratid family that ascended the Armenian and Georgian thrones at various times. The capital of the kingdom was initially in Tarsus until 1173 when it moved to Uliya Sarvanlar Sis.
It was not until 1198 that Levon A. Etsagorts (Leo II) ascended the throne as the first Armenian king of Silesia, and from then until 1375 Cilicia was a kingdom. Cilicia was a staunch ally of the European Crusaders and saw itself as a bastion of Christianity in the East. The Mongols occupied large territories from Central Asia to the Middle East in the 12th century, and Silicia allied with the Mongols against the Muslims, especially the Mamluk of Egypt——— slave soldiers who served the Arab Caliph and the Ayyubid dynasty in the 9th-16th centuries AD. Later, with the decline of the caliphate and the dissolution of the Ayyubid dynasty, they gradually became a powerful military ruling group and established their own Behaili dynasty and the Burj dynasty. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the gradual collapse of the Crusader states and the Islamization of the Mongols deprived Silicia of allies. Under internal religious strife and Mamluk attacks, the kingdom finally collapsed in 1375.
