Introduction

Welcome to a website dedicated to studying and documenting of the medieval wall paintings of the Gemer region. The aim of this website’s creators is to introduce to the domestic as well as international audience a unique collection of wall paintings, which come mostly from the 14th-15th century, and are concentrated on a relatively small area. Nowadays, we have a record of more than twenty churches with the medieval wall paintings. At the time of their origin, these localities – in a prosperous mining region – were a part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Today they are situated in Slovak republic.

The history of examining the wall paintings in the Gemer churches goes back to the late 19th century, mostly by the fundamental works of István Gróh (1867-1936) and Flórián František (Flóris Ferenz) Rómer (1815-1889). Since the second half of the 20th century, many Slovak, Czech and Hungarian art historians have been studying them: Dénes Radocsay, Mária Prokopp, Zsombor Jékely, Vladimír Wagner, Vlasta Dvořáková, Karel Stejskal, Josef Krása, Milan Togner, Katarína Biathová, Ján Bakoš, Barbora Glocková and Ivan Gerát. We would like to continue with their studies. The collection of the Gemer and Abov wall paintings is today a part of the provisional list of possible candidates for inclusion to the UNESCO World heritage List.

Recently, the Stredoveké nástenné maľby na Gemeri / Medieval mural in Gemer website includes the wall paintings from the churches of: Kraskovo (Karaszkó), Koceľovce (Gecelfalva), Ochtiná (Ochtina / Martonháza), Chyžné (Hizsnyó) and Kyjatice (Kiete). We have studied and photographically documented these during summer 2018. We plan to continue with the field research and documentation: We intend to expand the website with the wall paintings from churches in Dobšiná (Dobsina / Dobschau), Kameňany (Kövi), Plešivec (Pelsöc), Rimavské Brezovo (Rimabrezó), Rimavská Baňa (Rimabánya), Štítnik (Csetnek), Rákoš (Rákos), Rybník (Újvásár), Roštár (Restér), Šivetice (Süvete), Žíp (Zsip); and make it accessible to a wide range of interested persons.

We would like to sincerely thank all the priests, sacristans as well as church caretakers for their willingness to make the churches available and so enable us to do the research and photodocument the wall paintings. The research and the creating of the Stredoveké nástenné maľby na Gemeri / Medieval mural in Gemer website was supported using public funding by Slovak Art Council.

The site was launched on January 31st, 2019 and it will be continuously updated with new information.
The author of the texts is Peter Megyeši; the photographer is Dávid Doroš. The texts were translated into English by Kamila Babjaková.

We would be very happy if the Stredoveké nástenné maľby na Gemeri / Medieval mural in Gemer website increased public interest in such exceptional cultural heritage that the medieval wall paintings of Gemer are.

Photo reproductions are freely available for study and research purposes, however not for commercial activities. How to state their source in publishing: Photo by Dávid Doroš,  Stredoveká nástenná maľba na Gemeri  / Medieval mural in Gemer (www.medievalmuralgemer.com) 

Quotation example: Peter Megyeši, Kraskovo. In: Stredoveká nástenná maľba na Gemeri / Medieval mural in Gemer (www.medievalmuralgemer.com) 

Prešov, January 2019

Peter Megyeši

Department of Theory and History of Art, Faculty of Arts, Technical University of Košice

Art Research Centre of SAS (Slovak Academy of Sciences) in Bratislava