Contribution to the Study of the Scene of Abraham’s Hospitality in Eastern Christian Art – the Programmatic and Symbolic Aspect of the Scene

Abstract

The article deals with the selected examples of the scene of Abraham’s hospitality in Eastern Christian and Serbian Medieval art. The paper analyzes the meaning of the scene and looks at the examples in the old refectory of the Monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai (fig. 1), in the chapel of King Dragutin Nemanjić in Đurđevi Stupovi near Ras (fig. 2), in the Church of the Mother of God in Dragaljevci near Sofia (fig. 3) and in the Church of St. Dimitrius in Boboševo (fig. 4) near Ćustendil. As it illustrates one of the key moments of the Holy history, the scene of Abraham’s hospitality has been frequently depicted in art since the earliest times. Due to its significance, its has been attracting the attention of scholars since ancient times and has been widely studied in international and Serbian historiography in terms of iconography and meaning. Therefore, the article discusses selected examples of the scene of Abraham’s hospitality in Eastern Christian and Serbian Medieval art which are characterized by certain iconographic and conceptual peculiarities. Abraham’s hospitality is an important, ancient, very often depicted and multifaceted theme, and the teaching about it represents the fundamental dogma of Orthodoxy – in this scene the image of the Holy Trinity is symbolically recognized. The article examines the position of this scene in the painted programme of the mentioned monuments and the dependence of the symbolism of this scene on the position it occupies in the painted programme of the church. Depending on the context in which this event is depicted in art, it carries a different meaning, i.e. different nuances of meaning. Selected examples of the scene of Abraham’s hospitality are placed in a specific conceptual context through examining their appropriate programmatic and conceptual analogies and by taking into account the place of their depiction in the given monuments. In this sense, the article places special emphasis on the fresco of Abraham’s Hospitality in the Chapel of King Dragutin Nemanjić in the Đurđevi Stupovi Monastery.