HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

382 VOLODYMYR I. MEZENTSEVhigher over the main body of the building. This, together with the extendedproportions of the dome's drum, impart to the whole composition of thechurch a pyramidicity and a dynamic movement upwards. This impressionof verticality is emphasized by the proliferation of pilasters and halfcolumnson the facades and on the dome's drum, by the arrow-point archesof the windows and niches, and by the abundance of other vertical forms inthe decor of the exterior. Major attention in the P"iatnytsia church wasdevoted to the exterior architecture. These features distinguish the newarchitectural style of Rus' churches of the late twelfth and early thirteenthcenturies from Byzantine and Romanesque churches, for which static cubiccomposition and greater attention to interior architecture were characteristic.60The P"iatnytsia church was composed of red brick. The ornamentalbrickwork is particularly elaborate. In the decoration of the facades traditionalmeander and saw-tooth brick bands were combined with new,unusual lattice and zigzag patterns of brick. The drum of the dome has anarched cornice. Slate decorative details were used, but whitestone oneswere not. Frescoes covered the interior, the windows' apertures, and theniches on the facades. The adornment of the church's facades with frescoeswas an innovation. Excavations found fragments of frescoes withvariegated geometric and plant motifs. The floor was paved with multicoloredglazed ceramic tiles. The stairs to the choirs were placed in thethickness of the western wall. On the level of the choirs, the northern andsouthern walls had narrow internal galleries, like many contemporaneousRus' churches.Other pre-Mongol churches displaying features of this same new stylistictrend in Rus' architecture and analogous to Chernihiv's P"iatnytsia churchinclude St. Basil's church in Ovruch (1180-1194), the Church of the Apostlesin Bilhorod (1197), a church from the end of the twelfth century excavatednear the Art Institute in Kiev (supposed to be the Church of St. Basilof 1197), the Church of the Archangel Michael in Smolensk (1191-1194),the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Pskov (1193), and the Church of St.Paraskeva P"iatnytsia in the Marketplace of Novgorod the Great (1207).The influence of the P"iatnytsia church in Chernihiv was reflected in thearchitecture of contemporaneous churches in Novhorod-Sivers'kyi (thechurch at the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior), Putyvl' (theChurch of the Ascension), Vshchizh, and Trubchevsk. Many of thesechurches, according to their reconstructions, had recessed vaulting arches60Vagner, "Arkhitekturnye fragmenty," p. 18; Aseev, Arkhitektura, p. 155; Rappoport,Drevnerusskaia arkhitektura, pp. 51-58.