White Angel

This fresco was requested by one of our users; I immediately agreed due to its beauty and the fact that we really rarely present Byzantine art. White Angel is a detail of one of the best known frescoes in Serbian culture in the Mileševa monastery, Mironosnice na Hristovom grobu (Myrrhbearers on Christ's Grave) in Serbia, created during the reign of King Stephen Vladislav I of Serbia. Considered one of the most beautiful works of Serbian and European art from the High Middle Ages, this fresco is considered to be one of the great achievements in European painting. The writers of the 19th century, simply explained that "not even Giotto is comparable.” It depicts the arrival of the myrrhbearers at the tomb of Christ on Sunday morning after the events of the Crucifixion. Sitting on the stone is the Angel of the Lord dressed in a white chiton, whose myrrh-bearing arm shows the place of Christ's resurrection and his empty tomb.

A picture of the White Angel of Mileševa was sent as a message in the first satellite broadcast signal from Europe to America after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, as a symbol of peace and civilization. Later, the same signal containing the White Angel was transmitted to space in an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life forms.