VORONEŢ MONASTERY

VORONEŢ is a monastery in Romania, located in the town of Gura Humorului, Moldavia. It is one of the famous monasteries from the southern Bukovina, in Suceava County.

In 1488, Stephen the Great of Moldavia built the Voroneţ Monastery to commemorate the victory at Battle of Vaslui.

Often known as the “Sistine Chapel of the East” the frescoes at Voroneţ feature an intense shade of blue known in Romania as “Voroneţ blue”

The exterior walls - including a representation of the Last Judgment on the west wall - were painted in 1547 with a background of vivid cerulean blue. This blue is so vibrant that art historians refer to Voroneţ blue the same way they do Titian red.

The exterior, with its buttresses and door and window frames were related to Western European High Gothic. The influences spread from Transylvania and Poland with craftsmen who were invited especially to build churches.

On the inside painting, the nave and the altar still preserve the iconographic ensemble of the time of Stephen the Great.

Voroneţ Monastery is probably the most accomplished sample of Moldavian artistic achievement in architecture and painting

The paintings on the church walls ( which have been made by masters almost whose names remained unknown) have a distinctive chromatic harmony, a special manner of composition, nerve and clarity

Voroneţ Monastery was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993