Notes About the Painters of Georgian Manuscripts

Following article reviews the work of painters of Georgian manuscripts and the terms related to the manuscript illustrations.Names of painters are rarely mentioned in testaments-writings of Georgian manuscripts due to their humility and modesty. Basically, there are known some testaments of scribes, where narration occurs by the mouth of a commissioner. The commissioner used to be on the foreground, as beautiful writing and manuscript adornment greatly depended on the commissioner’s taste and ability.
There are only a few names of painters indicated in testaments-writings of manuscripts.The painter of Jruchi I Gospel, Teodore (H-1660, 940) is known from the testaments-writings of manuscripts; Matthew the painter (A-496) is mentioned alongside a culminating head jewellery of the Gospel of Matthew in one of the Gospels of the XIII century; Michael Korreseli (A-1335, XII-XIII CC), who illuminated the Gospel of Vani, ordered by Queen Tamar in the Constantinople;Avgaroz Bandaisdze is named a painter in the testament of the XIV century Gospel etc.
The scribe would also performan illumination of the manuscript. The fact that a scribe-calligrapher was also educated in painting is confirmed by the testament of the scribe-calligrapher Avgaroz Bandaisdze in the XIV century "Paracliton" (A-575).
In later times, the family dynasties of calligraphers (Tumanishvili, Mikadze, Bedismtserlishvili, Gabashvilis, Meskhishvili) were formed, where calligraphic art, artistic illumination of texts and tradition of composinghistorical documents would pass to generations.
The identification of the scribe and artist is based on the close compositional connection between the text and illumination, in particular when text breaks through the ornamental adornment, when scribe’s testament is artistically engaged, relates to the adornment or when capital letter illumination grows into the head jewellery. On the basis of the artistic-stylistic characterization, professional miniaturists and artist-decorators (composing ornaments) are distinguished, whose works associate with folk artifacts.
After the identification of the scribe and the artist, plenty of names of unknown painters were added to the gallery of Georgian masters.