The goal of the work is to present an overall survey of those late medieval and modern gravestones embellished with pictorial relief sculptures and architectural décor, to consider their essential features, their iconological, stylistic, thematic and ideological novelties, their artistic tendencies, and the influence upon them of folk-art traditions. This work is the first extensive attempt at studying gravestones from an art-historical perspective. Our examination of gravestones with figurative representations produced in Georgia from the 17th c. to the 1930s highlighted the regional peculiarities and diversity of gravestone décor, and shed light on the link between the content and iconography of the decorations and the medieval tradition of relief sculpture. Additionally, the modern tendency toward secularization became apparent, along with the discernible influx of elements of Neoclassical, Neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau styles, sometimes combined in a somewhat eclectic manner.
The Funerary Monuments of Georgia From the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
An author and supervisor:
E. Kvachatadze
A redactor:
Samson Lezhava
A consultant:
Eldar Nadiradze
Taking Photographs:
Gogotur Misriashvili
Tbilisi 2022
The goal of the work is to present an overall survey of those late medieval and modern gravestones embellished with pictorial relief sculptures and architectural décor, to consider their essential features, their iconological, stylistic, thematic and ideological novelties, their artistic tendencies, and the influence upon them of folk-art traditions. This work is the first extensive attempt at studying gravestones from an art-historical perspective. Our examination of gravestones with figurative representations produced in Georgia from the 17th c. to the 1930s highlighted the regional peculiarities and diversity of gravestone décor, and shed light on the link between the content and iconography of the decorations and the medieval tradition of relief sculpture. Additionally, the modern tendency toward secularization became apparent, along with the discernible influx of elements of Neoclassical, Neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau styles, sometimes combined in a somewhat eclectic manner.
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