page_title: Albanian art
section_title: Medieval period
hierarchical_section_title: Albanian art / History / Medieval period
caption_attribution_description: English: Epitaph of Gllavenica
context_page_description: The Albanian art refers to all artistic expressions and artworks in Albania or produced by Albanians. The country's art is either work of arts produced by its people and influenced by its culture and traditions. It has preserved its original elements and traditions despite its long and eventful history around the time when Albania was populated to Illyrians and Ancient Greeks and subsequently conquered by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans.
  At different times, Illyrian, Ancient Greek and Roman art developed in Albania and survived in a number of media inclusive of architecture, sculpture, pottery, and mosaic. The rock inscriptions in Grama Bay and mosaic in Durrës can be traced back to the 4th century BC and there are nonetheless ancient remains of extraordinary quality available at Apollonia, Byllis, Shkodër, Butrint and elsewhere across the country.
  The centerpiece of medieval Albanian art started with the successor of the Roman Empire, namely the Byzantine Empire that ruled the great majority of Albania and the Balkan Peninsula. It comprised gradually of frescoes, murals, and icons painted with an admirable use of color and gold.
context_section_description: When the Roman Empire was divided in the fourth century, most of Illyria remained in the Eastern Roman Empire that was conventionally known as the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine art, the art of the Eastern Roman Empire from about the 5th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, was predominantly marked by religious expressions and a renewed interest in techniques of the Roman Empire mixed with the themes of Christianity.
  Icons and frescoes emerged as a significant art form with an extensive church building in Albania. They covered sacred building interior walls, floors and domes increased and expanded in size and importance. The use of gold and bright colors was important indeed each color had its own value and meaning. In addition, colors were never mixed together but were always used pure.
  The earliest icons of Albania date from the thirteenth century and generally estimated that their artistic peak reached in the eighteenth century. No paintings before the thirteenth century, produced by Albanians, have been located to date. Nonetheless few older structures in the country house different collections of paintings dating to the Byzantine period.
  Manuscripts were another significant feature of Albanian medieval art. The handwritten Codex Beratinus and Codex Beratinus II are two ancient Gospels from Berat, dating from the sixth and ninth centuries. They represent one of the most valuable treasures of the Albanian cultural heritage that was inscribed on the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2005.
  By the fifteenth century after the Fall of Constantinople and the invasion of Southeastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire, art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Balkans was often named Post-Byzantine art. In that period many valuable monuments and artifacts were made by Albanian painters.
  The most famous Albanian painter was Onufri who worked almost his entire life in Albania and Macedonia. Onufri was distinguished for its rich use of colors and decorative shades with certain ethnographic national elements that are more visible with his successors David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku and the Zografi Brothers. They lavishly painted diverse churches and monasteries throughout Albania and neighboring countries, especially visible in Berat, Elbasan, Voskopojë, and Korçë.
  The Ottoman period of Albania during the fifteenth century is traditionally said to have had a negative impact on Albanian art and so the influences of Renaissance were extinguished. This influence was absorbed and reinterpreted with an extensive construction of mosques that opened a new section in Albanian art, that of Islamic art. This style of art was usually portrayed by the highest degree of motifs, arabesques and ornamentation of interlacing geometrical patterns of polygons, circles and interlocked lines and curves.
caption: The Epitaph of Gllavenica is often considered the highlight of medieval Albanian art that was commissioned by Gjergj Arianiti in 1373.
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