Byzantine Wall Paintings in Pagan and Catholic Buildings: The Issue of Visual and Confessional Sameness

Abstract

At the end of the fourteenth century, interiors of the residential quarters of the grand ducal castles in Krėva and Medininkai were adorned with murals in the Byzantine style. Similar in manner and approach to contemporaneous wall paintings in Pskov and Tver’, the decoration of Lithuanian castles demonstrates that artistic practices often transcended confessional boundaries, with Orthodox painters undertaking commissions for pagan lords. What is more, the Byzantine style of interior decoration remained popular with the Lithuanian ruling elite even after the country’s conversion to Catholicism in 1387, when such paintings were also introduced into church interiors. In the fifteenth century, Byzantine paintings appeared not only in the palaces of the Lower Castle of Vilnius and the Island Castle of Trakai, but also in the parish church of Trakai and a funerary crypt in Vilnius Cathedral. A retrospective analysis of these paintings highlights their almost exclusive reliance on grand ducal patronage and their notable longevity, with the decoration of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, commissioned by Casimir Jagiellon in 1470, representing the final example. The article juxtaposes these Byzantine paintings with the use of Cyrillic literacy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, concluding that while the script facilitated communication, the paintings functioned as markers of grand ducal exclusivity.