Medieval Wall Paintings in Lebanon: Donors and Artists

Abstract

In the course of time, a significant number of medieval wall paintings have come to light in churches and chapels in Lebanon. Without any doubt these discoveries are of great value for the study of Christian art in the Middle East from the eleventh till the thirteenth century. Their significance is apparent from the remarkably high quantity of these murals and their historical context, rather than from the quality of the workmanship or their present condition, since most of them have survived in a very damaged state. The country has certainly not yet yielded up all of its paintings. New discoveries are reported regularly; in Yuhanna Sader's monograph on this subject published in 1997 twenty-two sites are discussed, while in the present publication this number has increased to twenty-seven. This impressive tally does not even include several unpublished sites and three cave chapels in the Qadisha Valley with simple decorations, mentioned in earlier publications (Sader 1997:236-245; Nordiguian/Voisin 1999:385, 386, 390). Taking into account the quantity of contemporary murals in neighbouring areas in the Middle East, at a rough estimate about ten in Syria, five in Palestine, fifteen in Egypt, and thirteen on Cyprus, the paintings of Lebanon are a non-negligible factor in the study of oriental Christian artistic tradition.