Voroneţ

The oldest of the five most important monasteries of Bucovina, Voroneţ is built in 1488 by Ştefan cel Mare. The paintings on its interior impress by means of the force of expression of the human faces, the typolog of man, with realist accents. The identity of saints is kept throughout the church, as this serves the easy decodation of the various scenes to those who could not read.

Interesting to the painting on the interior is that the Byzantine rules are loosing territory. It shows a higher liberty of interpretation and starting to give more importance to the human content of the scene. Like the church in Pătrăuţi, the votive painting of Ştefan the Great and his family is grandious. Voroneţ, alongside with other three less important churches of the time, impress through the quality of their paintings and the unity of conception of the painting. It is now, that the Moldavian school of painting has reached ts climax.

More than half a century on since its painting, a new wall has been created for a single grandious painting: The Day of Judgement. This sole painting makes all what is so special about Voroneţ: it has been created to impress. The son of Petru Rareş, Iliaş Rareş, who would have been normally his successor to the Moldavian throne, upon returning from the Osman Empire, was inclined to take on the Muslim faith (which he finally did) and has proven to be gay. The ideas were too radical for the 16th century Moldova, which led the ruler and the Church to try to impress him with a painting of the Day of Judgement. Painted in a wonderful manner and great colours, on a wall that has been erected especially for it on the eastern side of the church, which was not interrupted by any doors or windows (that is why Voroneţ apparently has no main entrance, but a small side-entrance), it impresses the eyes of today’s visitor rather than the person who it initially intended to.