The sculpture of the church of the holy virgin of the Studenica Monastery. Origin and models

Abstract

The paper deals with the architectural sculpture of the twelfth century Church of the Holy Virgin at the Studenica Monastery. Its parallels with Italian Romanesque sculpture have long been identified in academic literature, and attention has been drawn to the influence of classical sculpture, mostly in terms of style, which has been attributed to the impact of Byzantine art. The paper demonstrates that all the motifs present in Studenica’s sculptural decoration originate from Romanesque sculpture in the Italian regions of Emilia Romagna and Apulia. Most of them rely on ancient Roman models and the motif known as peopled or inhabited scrolls is dominant among them.

Keywords

• studenica monastery
• architectural sculpture
• enthroned virgin and child
• sedes sapientiae
• mission of the apostles
• peopled scrolls
• twelfth-century
• serbia