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124 Tamara Ogwevi} NZ27/2003

to his heirs. Namely, in De`eva, Milutin vowed to be succeeded at the throne by
Dragutin eldest son. With the cycle of saints on the northern wall, Dragutin evokes
brotherly love, and with the one in the eastern, altar zone, he portrays holy ascetics
and miracle-workers, those who have achieved the highest monastic deed, as well
as the parents of the Mother of God, Joachim and Anne, as a metaphor of true reli-
gion which the heavens always rewards with the greatest blessing.
By their style, the paintings in Dragutin’s sepulchral chapel in Ras bear the
characteristics of late Comnen monumental art with occasional reflections of the
coming trend of the restoration of the classicism of the Paleologues. A nice exam-
ple of a symbiosis of these artistic streams is the Holy Trinity in the lunette of the
southern wall, presented in the images of three Old Testament angels from the
Hospitality of Abraham, and in this concrete case, as a symbol of God’s omnipres-
ence in all acts of men.
According to all relevant indicators, the paintings in Dragutin’s chapel were
made by at least two painters. A comparative analysis of certain frescoes in the
chapel, such as the angel in pink and St. Anne, as compared to Archangel Gabriel
and the Mother of God from Annunciation in the church of St. Achilleus in Arilje,
also Dragutin’s endowment from 1296, offers grounds for believing that the better
master of Dragutin’s chapel is actually the same artist whom researcher consider to
be the best of the three painters of the church in Arilje. If this presumption, pre-
sented for the first time in this paper, proves to be correct, it will be a discovery of
exceptional importance for Serbian art history.

Translated by T. Ognjevi}