Gelati Monastery: Art, Politics and Dynastic Legacy under the Bagrationis

Gelati monastery in Georgia, a 12th-century foundation initiated by King Davit IV ‘the Builder (r. 1089–1125) and inaugurated by his heir, King Demetre I (r. 1125–55/6), is heralded by Georgian scholarship across the disciplines as a symbol of unified, dominant state in its ‘Golden Age’, and a major religious, educational and charitable centre of its time rivalling and surpassing Byzantine monastic and intellectual establishments. Scrutinised solely from the vantage point of local historical accounts and memories, the site is celebrated through aggrandised rhetorical tropes, while its built and visual environment was instrumentalised for insular and biased art historical narratives advocating for exceptionality, originality and insularity from Byzantine ‘contamination’. This paper critically challenges the conventional interpretation ascribed to the monastery’s past and its material remains. By proposing an alternative reading that is informed by the mechanics of medieval patronal negotiations, it posits that the monastery was contrived through a joint effort of royal and ecclesiastical parties acting on the principle of reciprocity. Envisaged through the lens of triumphal rulership, the site became a springboard for pursuing novel ideologies and agendas, while simultaneously converging the ties of royal succession, kinship and memory. These, the paper argues, were further manifest in visual environment in and around the monastery through its architectural setting, monumental programmes and devotional paraphernalia. The paper recovers and introduces the agency of the Byzantine-trained Georgian literati in the monastery’s verbal and visual components, previously limited to philological enquiries. By presenting these men of letters as driving force behind patronal undertakings, the paper traces visual idiom inclined towards spoliation, emulation and appropriation. Ultimately, I present nuanced modes of intercultural exchange that existed between Byzantium and Georgia drawing away simultaneously from the idealised views of the ‘Golden Age’ or rigid centre-periphery discourses.