Graphite and red felt-tip pen on artist board
55.88 cm x 76.2 cm (22 in. x 30 in.)
To complete the iconographic cycle in the dome above the western arm of the lost Constantinopolitan church, the team of scholars imagined, on the grounds of a rather problematic passage of Mesarites’ description, the scene of the Pentecost. The depiction commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit over the Apostles: the rays of the Holy Spirit, represented in the form of a dove, stream down from a celestial disk, in which the empty throne of the Hetoimasia is depicted, and brush the heads of the Apostles who are seated in the wide band around the central medallion. Similar examples are found in middle Byzantine monumental painting, in the mosaics of the katholikon (main monastic church) of Hosios Loukas in central Greece (eleventh century), and in the rich decorative cycle of San Marco in Venice.
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