The Impact of the Constructive Solution on the Formation of the Portal in the Architecture of Armenian Churches of 4th-7th Centuries

Abstract

The article refers to the issues of decorative elements in architecture. The aim of the paper was to reveal the interaction peculiarities of the constructive and artistic solutions of the formation of the portals of the Armenian churches of 4th-7th centuries. The analysis of the process of formation allowed for carrying out the typological classification of the portals from the point of view of the transformation and development of the lintel construction. The classification showed that the portal created as a decoration of the entrance, as a result of the evolution of compositional-structural components was transformed into a unified constructive-artistic element, which has become the main type used in the later periods of the Armenian medieval architecture. The revealed features of the interaction of decorative and structural elements can be useful in the field of heritage studies and in the development of further works on the formation of decorative elements.

A comparative analysis of the interrelation between the evolution in the structure of Armenian churches of the 4th-14th centuries and the three-layer “midis” masonry

“…The structural systems of the churches created during the 6th-7th centuries, as in the case of their particular components [14], were continuously used and were more developed in the 9th-11th centuries. And in the 12th-14th centuries some of them became the main ones.…”

“…The elaboration of the research is based on the identification of certain issues arising from the topic and the study of related sources. Within the framework of the literature, in particular, the issues were considered in the following directions: interrelations between structural and artistic solutions in architecture [1,[11][12][13][14]; general issues of ensuring the strength of structural systems and work efficiency [15,16]; issues related to masonry and its structure [17][18][19][20][21]; questions about the composition of the core in three-layer walls, binding materials and their development, differentiation of the core, as well as its effect on masonry and overall structure [12,16,21,22]; measures to ensure structure unity of the three-layer wall in Roman, Byzantine, and Syrian structures [12,13,[23][24][25][26][27][28]; the process of gradual evolution of three-layer walls in Armenia [29][30][31][32]; peculiarities of "midis" masonry, the composition of its core, its homogeneity and monolithic nature in the structure of the structural elements [30,31,33]; general description of the structure of Armenian medieval churches [33][34][35][36][37][38][39] and typological classifications [30,…”

“…Such discussions, in particular, are available in the following sources: in the works of Mikaelyan and Sahinyan there are descriptions of the wall structure in different periods [29,32]; Toramanyan's and Harutyunyan's works refer to the issues of the strength of the "midis" masonry wall [30,33]; the structure of Armenian churches is analyzed in the works of Marr, Toramanyan, Sahinyan, Tokarski, Pabutchyan, Novello, Shakhkyan and Harutyunyan [30,[33][34][35][36][37][38]40]; the topic of structural, compositional and artistic peculiarities of Armenian churches is also touched upon by Choisy and Strzygowski [23,41,42]; Isabekyan's work examines the process of forming a three-layer Armenian wall as a structural monolithic element, and also puts forward the idea of interrelation between the wall expressive means and structural forms in Armenian architecture [31]. Our previous work is also devoted to the interaction of structural and artistic solutions of form making in the architecture of Armenian medieval churches, where the issue is discussed at the level of a separate component of the wall and the structurethe portal [14].…”