Painting

Georgian mural painting reached great heights during the flowering of arts in the Middle Ages. National schools of a unique character developed through discovery and celebration of Georgian hagiography as well as through cultural contacts with neighbouring countries. The greatest creativity flourished between the eleventh and the first half of the thirteenth centuries. From the fourteenth century onward the imported Byzantine Paleologian style predominated. Interesting examples of Persian influence during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be seen in the secular portraits of founders. In the nineteenth century when Russia annexed Georgia and the Georgian Orthodox Church lost its autocephalous character, many frescoes were whitewashed and irreparably damaged. We are left with only a fraction of what had been. The churches of Ateni Sioni, Udabno, Zemo Krikhi, Gelati, Vardzia, Timotesubani, Bertubani, Kintsvisi, Ubisi and Nekresi contain the most notable surviving examples.

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