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Стиль росписей основного объема церкви Рождества Богородицы в Бетании и их место в грузинской и византийской живописи середины – второй половины XII в.
The stylistic analysis of the wall painting of Betania monastery sheds light on the place of these frescoes in Byzantine art of the 12th century. As for the Georgian paintings of the epoch, there are some monuments of the first third of the 12th century (frescoes of St. George in Bochorma (after 1104) and several churches of Svanetia, mosaics and frescoes of Gelati Monastery (1130s)). The following fifty years present a kind of historical gap in art, after which the first dated monument is the Church of the Dormition of Vardzia monastery (1180s). The study of the frescoes on the south and north walls of the nave of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Betania allows us to conclude that their style was developing in the course of the classical trends of Byzantine painting of 12th century. The present article examines the frescoes of Betania among the monuments of the Middle Byzantine era as the wall paintings of the Mirozh monastery in Pskov (1130s –1140s), the Church of the Transfiguration of St. Euphrosynia monastery in Polotsk (circa 1161), the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Sicily (1142–1150), the Cathedral-Basilica of Cefalù (1148), the Martorana or Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (1146–1156) etc.