free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Art under the Venetians
began to paint. The face of omnipotent Christ grew from his brush;
the nostrils dwarfed the hand that was painting them. On the twelfth
day, the face completed, the bishop climbed down, totally exhausted
by the struggle to convey his vision. His legs gave way beneath him;
the muscles of his neck were set stiff; the body succumbed to fever.
Another approach. Look for a moment at one church. Among those
eight hundred the most rewarding are perhaps the Virgin at Kritsa,
St Fanourios at Valsamonero, the monastery at Vrondisi, the Asomatos
at Archanes, the Archangel Michael at Vathi on the west coast, the
Dormition of the Virgin at Alikambos, and the Virgin at Potamies. Of
all these none is richer than the church of the Virgin, Panagia Kera, at
Kritsa.
Kritsa is the largest village in Crete. It lies in the hills north of St
Nicholas; in the area which the film-makers frequent. The French film
Celui gui Dolt Mourir, from Kazantzakis’s novel Christ Recrucified, was
made here, and more recently Walt Disney has been filming an extravagant
story set in Crete and entitled The Moonspinners, with Hayley
Mills. The church of the Virgin – which is not the only painted church
in Kritsa; do not miss St George Kavousiotis – lies below the village
among groves of olive and orange trees. Cypresses, which are the signposts
of holy ground, rise beside the church.
The Panagia Kera is one of the few Byzantine churches of Crete with
more than one aisle; it has three, and is crowned with a dome. To stand
in this church in the time of its perfection was to read a book full of the
gospel stories. 1 The south aisle was devoted to St Anne, the Virgin’s
mother, and in the tipper part her story was told in scenes from the
Apocryphal Gospels, thus (from east to west):
The Announcing of the Good News to Joachim: The angel descends and
tells the reflective Joachim the good news of his wife Anne’s pregnancy.
Joachim’s House: Joachim and Anne at table, probably celebrating
the news.
Joachim meets Anne: Joachim returns from the desert where he had
gone and fasted forty days and nights before the angel appeared to him.
He embraces Anne.
Anne’s prayer: She prays in a garden, among trees with birds’ nests
in their branches, her arms raised. The angel descends, to tell her:
‘Anne, Anne, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive
and bring forth.’
The Priests Bless the Infant Mary.
The Birth of the Virgin Mary.
Joachim holds the Infant Mary.
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