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Metanarrative

as a Template

for a Hybrid Fresco

vorinos toixos.jpg

As mentioned in the analysis of the Restoration of Icons, the surplus value of granting an equal or greater enlargement to future configurations of an artistic rendering, is based on the wide range of field, given by the artwork as a reference, that creates an open interoperability framework for its development. Interoperability concerns both the visual and narrative frame of reference, acting as a module that constructs the meaning of the past in the context of the present. Into this module the narrative allows us to relate to time by selecting those events that can construe a meaning  and reflect personal vistas onto this meaning.

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Hence, narrative is like the connective tissue that shapes a society. To quote Roland Barthes:

under this almost infinite diversity of forms present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative.

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The iconographic program of the Orthodox Church contains many historical narratives, attributing its inseparable link with the historical events. In short, these narratives provide a totalising and comprehensive explanation and legitimation of major events, in terms of historical experience and knowledge.

When a narrative is about a miraculous event, its depiction mythologise the event and emphasise its absolute importance. Initially, it was believed that these narrations told something that could not be explained by the scientific knowledge. Over the years, the theories of relativity and quantum physics brought humans closer to the unexplained factors of the miracle. Taking into account the teleological aspect of religion, a metanarrative of a miracle expands the possibility to conceive the unseen. Hence, instead of a supernatural event, the miracle turns to be a transcendental framework.

The concept of Karoussos, to develop a visual narrative around the history of the monastery of the Great Cave that unfolds throughout the path (entrance, stairs, and narthex) towards the church, as a cinematic sequence, provides the visitor with the necessary aesthetic and cognitive experience before entering the church.

The metanarrative of the two compositions of the Great Cave, at St. Spyridon chapel involves the relationship with other metanarratives concerning the local physical and cultural environment.

A metanarrative embodies a narrative about narrative dealing with the nature, structure, and signification of historical, cultural, and other narrations that refer to the generation and accumulation of meaning across the structure of historical continuity.

This accumulation is the purpose of depicting the three metanarrative hybrid frescoes in the northern part of the chapel. It enhances the interoperability of cultural continuity, through their theological content, creating a unified body of communal consciousness, significant for cultural development and social cohesion, locally, nationally, and internationally.

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