14/11/2006
The origins of their art
Kapesovo is one of the most famous villages at Zagorion, which was predominantly organised in the 16th century and recognised a huge development in the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century.
From the middle of the 18th century and subsequently Kapesovo also peaked through trade, which was the main concern of the wealthy families, such as that of Ali Pashas blood brother, Noutsos Karamisinis and his son Alexis Noutsos, Konstantinos Marinos or Marinoglou, a wealthy merchant and banker at Ioannina and Constantinople, who was simultaneously the financial consultant for Ali Pasha and the manager of external affairs, the Paschalis brothers, etc.
Commerce and an increase in wealth also had as a consequence the development of Education. Basic education at Zagorion had already commenced in the 17th century. In 1780 there was a Greek school operating in Kapesovo. In 1861 the construction was also completed, by the brothers Pavlos and Konstantinos Paschalis, of the Paschalaias College and in 1867 the Ladies College was established with money donated by Chryse Paschalis.
A result of this development was that from the first half of the 18th century and at least until 1841 the trade of the artist hagiographer also developed exceptionally at Kapesovo. We have verified this by the exceptional blossoming that this art recognised, as it appears from the hagiography of the various churches, the portable icons and the gold leafing on the iconostasis at Siatista in Macedonia and within the present day borders of Ioannina by Kapesovo hagiographers.
It is noteworthy that the hagiographers followed the family organisation of the art and did not have any relations with the obligations and the rights of the organised urban professional associations. In the productive process with which they were involved, the terms for the exercise of the profession, the assumption of the obligations as well as the successive apprenticeship stages (assistant, apprentice, master) were determined by the unwritten and traditional code.
The guilds or the associations with their charter and their organisation, especially in the cities, as well as the gangs or teams that stormed out for work in the various regions during Spring and returned in Autumn, do not bear any relationship to them, since they had neither a charter nor the corresponding organisation that the guilds possessed, nor were they only employed for a part of the year, but rather throughout the entire year, even in winter, on murals.
They constituted a more significant uniform group of hagiographers in comparison to the other smaller groups that were active throughout Epirus during this period (18th 19th century), as for example that of the Linotopites or the Samarinaioi, as well as in comparison to larger group, as for example that of the Chionades hagiographers.
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