| A depiction of Bartholomew the Apostle standing tall and bare to the bone, with his flayed skin slung over his right shoulder, appears in a fresco in the church of Aghioi Apostoli in the village of Plemeniana. This strikingly realistic scene is unique in Orthodox iconography, and is at a clear distance from the Orthodox hagiographic and iconographic tradition of the saint’s death by crucifixion, which became dominant after the Iconoclast Controversy. In contrast, Catholic hagiographic sources, which rest among other things on an apocryphal Latin narrative, mention both kinds of martyrdom. Given that flaying became dominant in Western iconography, the folk artist working at Plemeniana followed the Western model, transferring it to the Byzantine mode. Western influences on Orthodox religious art on Crete are in need of further investigation. |