Изображения на Страшния съд в търновските села Самоводене и Хотница
Representations of The Last Judgment in the villages of Samovodene and Hotnitsa, Veliko Tyrnovo

Summary/Abstract: The Last Judgment has been painted in the second half of the nineteenth century (after 1849) by unknown icon-painters at the parish churches of the villages of Samovodene and Hotnitsa nearby Veliko Tyrnovo, both dedicated to St Irene. The mural in Samovodene has not been explored for the time being. On the basis of a comparison between texts in scrolls painted at the church in Samovodene and the murals by Zachary The Icon-painter at the Monastery of the Transfiguration (1849), direct borrowings were established from a number of Zachary's paintings. Examples of The Last Judgments painted by Zachary in 1847/48 at the Monastery of Trojan are also provided for comparison. The images and the scrolls of the archangels at the entrance prove identical; the prophetic texts from Exodus 18:15, Daniel 7:9 and Malachi 4:1 are also identically inscribed. The manner in which Zachary represented the Hetoimasia with the Tablets of Moses and quotes from the Revelation 20:15; 20:12 onto an open gospel is especially striking, following strictly the guidelines set out in the Painter's Manual of Dionysius of Fourna, whose Hermeneia in Greek the painter meticulously adhered to in his murals at a time, when most of the painters opted to use Athonite prints of The Last Judgments as models. Zachary The Icon-painter though did not copy the prints and the painter from Samovodene copied solely Zachary's murals. The Last Judgments in Hotnitsa, in its turn, has overpainted an earlier layer of painting of 1837; now the murals are removed and kept at the Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Arbanassi. Asen Vasiliev spotted The Last Judgments in Hotnitsa, in 1943 and erroneously dated it 1836, i.e. when the church was consecrated, finding a striking resemblance to the wall paintings by Zachary at the Monastery of the Transfiguration, defining the latter as influenced by those in Hotnitsa but in fact the reverse is true. The compositions of both monuments were influenced by The Last Judgmems painted by Zachary at the Monastery of the Transfiguration.

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