Ethiopian Religious Painting
Image by A.Davey
I believe the figure on the left is St. George, Ethiopia’s patron saint. One clue is the figure in the tree to the right of the horse. Unless I wasn’t paying close enough attention and got it wrong, we were told this figure, which always appears in a tree in Ethiopian paintings of St. George, represents Ethiopia.
The figures on the right are the Virgin Mary and Jesus.
Church of Debra Berhan Selassie, Gondar, Ethiopia.
Emperor Iyasu the Great, a grandson of Emperor Fasilides, built the Church of Debra Berhan Selassie, which means "The Light of the Trinity" in Amharic. Emperor Iyasu ruled from 1682 until his assassination in 1706.
According to the website ethiopiatravel.com:
A plain, thatched, rectangular structure on the outside, the interior of Debra Berhan Selassie is marvelously painted with a great many scenes from religious history.
The spaces between the beams of the ceiling contain the brilliant wide-eyed images of more than eighty angels faces – all different, with their own character and expressions.
The north wall, in which is the holy of holies, is dominated by a depiction of the Trinity above the crucifixion. The theme of the south wall is St Mary; that of the east wall the life of Jesus. The west wall shows important saints, with St George in red-and-gold on a prancing white horse.
www.ethiopiatravel.com/Gondar_eng.htm
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