Page 121 - Zbornik 27

NZ27/2003 NOVI PRILOZI TUMA^EWU @IVOPISA... 123

Tamara Ognjevi}

NEW CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE INTERPRETATION
OF THE PAINTINGS IN DRAGUTIN’S SEPULCHRAL CHAPEL
AT \UR\EVI STUPOVI IN RAS

King Dragutin Nemanji} (1276–1282; +1316) was the only ruler of the
Nemanji} dynasty, apart from his uncle King Radoslav (1228–1234; + after 1235),
who failed to erect a monumental sepulchral church, but decided instead to be bur-
ied in a modest chapel within the complex of the \ur|evi Stupovi Monastery in
Ras, the endowment of his great grandfather Stefan Nemanja from 1171. The rea-
sons for such a decision, like in the case of king Radoslav, were of a religious na-
ture, rooted in Dragutin’s profound belief that the failure of his rule and his fatal
fall from a horse near the town of Jela~ in 1281, when he almost met his end, were
God’s punishment for his forcible dethroning of his father Uro{ I (1243–1276).
Absorbed in such thoughts, deeply immersed in religious mysticism, at the council
in De`eva in 1282, King Dragutin relinquished the throne in favor of his younger
brother Milutin (1282–1321) and initiated works on the reconstruction of the de-
fense tower — the entrance to the western part of complex of the \urdjevi Stupovi
Monastery in Ras, so as to transform it into a sepulcher where he was eventually
buried as monk Teoktist in 1316.
The paintings of this small, square-shaped space, overtopped by a ribbed
vault, represent, however, a unique example in the entire heritage of Serbian medi-
eval art. Founder Dragutin had the walls of his modest eternal resting place painted
so as to present a document combined with the symbols of the utmost religious
deed, of monastic asceticism implying the voluntary refraining from worldly plea-
sures for the sake of attaining the Kingdom of Heaven, thus also leaving behind a
personal pictorial testament and the most intimate »proof of belief«. The pictorial
testament obliged his brother Milutin to respect the vows made in De`eva, and the
religious topics obliged him personally to offer the biggest sacrifices for the pur-
pose of repentance and the salvation of his soul.
The painted program of the paintings in Dragutin’s chapel consists of sev-
eral compositions. The four state councils painted on the chapel’s vault symbolize
the legitimacy of the rule of the house of the Nemanji}’s, in both the legal and reli-
gious sense, while the compositions on the southern and western walls, where pro-
cessions of the Nemanji}’s ancestors, but of the current rulers of the time as well,
are moving towards Enthroned Christ, indicate the continuity of this ruling noble
lineage, and this »by God’s mercy«. By painting in the procession of the current
rulers only his own first-born son, Prince Vladislav (1321–1325; last commemora-
tion in 1336), but not Milutin’s first-born son, Stefan (1321–1331), the founder re-
minds his brother that in De`eva he had handed over power to him for life, but not