Iv. The Art of the Late Middle Ages in the East 3. Art on the Middle and Lower Danube

Consider the art of Serbia and Hungary. Serbian art in its essential features is of an oriental character, Hungarian - western. It is very interesting to trace the boundaries of religions and their artistic expression - the difference between the Byzantine art of Serbia and the Romanesque-Gothic art of Hungary.

The medieval architecture of the Serbian kingdom, the acquaintance with which we owe mainly to the Kanica publication, really closely adjoins Byzantine architecture, although with some Armenian borrowings. All the churches are built according to the plan of the Greek cross: its three branches end in absades, on the entrance side there is a rather extensive nardiq, sometimes attached in a later time; all of them are covered by a dome, below supported by four pillars or pillars, at the top - by a high drum; over the dome rises the roof; in later churches, four or more minor domes join the main dome. Initially, all Serbian churches had the appearance of brick plastered buildings of simple or colored glaze bricks, alternating in places with stone slabs; but later they were plastered without any regret, with the exception of only a few parts. Narrow cornices usually have poor and dry profiles. Tall, narrow, with a semicircular arch window divided in half or in three parts elegant columns. The exterior of the building is trimmed with lizens and fake arches, the smooth internal walls are covered with rich fresco paintings, from which, however, only scant remains have survived.

A simple church in the town of Semerovo on the Danube, founded in 1010, belongs to the oldest buildings of Serbia. In the 12th century, churches were built in ичića and Studenica. The church in ичić, which served as the coronation site of the six Serbian kings, is distinguished by the organic design and the elegant form of the two narki domes, stylishly subordinate to the main dome. The magnificent church in Studenica, founded by King Stephen I (died in 1199), was originally built of marble and then greatly modified by later extensions. The view of this church with its semicircular apsides, lizens and arched friezes gives the impression of a Western Romanesque structure. The rich main portal is a miracle of late Byzantine art, but it is also not free from some western borrowings. Its side pillars, topped with almost purely Corinthian capitals, have bases in the form of heraldic lions. The internal profiles of the portal are decorated with Acanthus curls, rosettes and palmettes in the Byzantine style. The tympanum, in which the frozen and lifeless image of the Savior with the forthcoming angels, made in a low relief, is framed with a frieze of vegetative curls and fantastic strictly stylish animals. The Lazaritsa church in Kruševac, where Prince Lazar died in 1389, dates back to the 14th century. Its three apses at the ends of the cross, polygonal on the outside, are dissected by semicolumns, the twisted upper parts of which sometimes have Romanesque vat capitals. Some exterior fake arches have a horseshoe-shaped shape, and in the ornamentation everywhere there is a mixed, so to speak, Western-Eastern style. The churches in Ravanica and Manasia, which arose in the XIV century, have a more developed dome system. The first in one place has Western articulated arched double windows framed with rich ornamentation, the second, thanks to its highly raised semicircular arches, acquires a completely oriental character inside.

Crossing the Hungarian border, we meet with the eastern representatives of the Romanesque and Gothic art of the West. The cathedral in Uy-Péch (Fünf-Kirchen), built around 1200, is the most interesting Old Romance building of Hungary. Constructed in the form of a three-nave flat-capped basilica with pillars without a transept, but with three semicircular eastern abside and four high corner towers, it was later changed in many parts, but then restored again in its original form. The open galleries of the western façade are strikingly reminiscent, as noted by Genelman and G. Schäfer, of the Romanesque facades of Lucca, that is, Italian and German borrowings are mixed here.

At the beginning of the XIII century, the original church of the monastery Kish-Beni was built; it has a single-nave longitudinal case enclosed between a three-nave chorus and a three-nave one, furnished with two towers on the western facade. The individual forms here are German-Romance, with cup or vat capitals. The transitional style belongs to a series of three-nave, still deprived of the transept, but covered with cross vaults and covered with kidney pillars of Hungarian basilica; the arches of their interiors and the outer arches of the portals are already pointed, while the windows end at the top with a round arch, and the poles and semi-columns decorated with bud capitals are equipped with Romanesque bases with vultures (corner leaves). The monastic churches in Lebeny, Yak and Zhambek are the best buildings of this style, which sometimes, such as, for example, in the portal of the church in Yak, give organic combinations of semicircular arches with lancers.

During the XIV century in the Magyar kingdom reigned Western Gothic. The first half of this century belongs to the gothic church of the hall system in Edenburg, erected on round columns. All the beauties of the Gothic style of this time are consistently held in his wide single-nave choir. The transition to the late Gothic with its reticulated vaults and intricate openwork carvings of window covers is represented by the Cathedral in Kas, which continued to be built in the 15th century. The plan of this cathedral is rather peculiar: its eastern half is round and resembles the Church of Our Lady in Trier (see fig. 265 and 266), while the western half, with towers towering in corners, has the shape of a longitudinal body.

To establish the presence of Byzantine influences in some parts of this and other Hungarian churches has not yet succeeded. The opposition of Hungarian artistic taste to influences coming from the Lower Danube proves that the Byzantine style had already lost its power over the West.