Two Saints - Two Specific Forms of Portrayal: Scenes from the Lives of St. Ladislaus and St. Elizabeth in Slovak Mediaeval Art
Abstrakt
The paper deals with scenes from the lives of two saints from the Árpád dynasty in Slovak mediaeval art, namely St. Ladislaus and St.
Elizabeth. Although both of them come from the same dynasty, the way they are represented in art is subject to special features in each case.
Events from the life of St. Ladislaus were mainly to be found in wall paintings in rural areas.
By contrast, the life of St. Elizabeth was most often represented in cycles of paintings for altarpieces in the churches of mediaeval towns.
Looking at these hagiographical cycles causes us to ask what the reasons were for the choice of the individual scenes and the way they were expressed artistically. The scenes from the life of St.
Ladislaus bear many hallmarks of scenes from chivalric romances, while in cycles of paintings of St. Elizabeth we find parallels with Christological and Marian cycles or the idea of following Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary