Although Holy Trinity Church cannot boast of costly marble on its external walls and lavish relief decoration on its portals and windows, it nevertheless harbours in its interior one of the most splendid collections of 13th-century paintings in Europe.

The large windows in the altar apse, the dome and the lateral walls of the church shed abundant light on the frescoes, which were exposed for centuries to the inclemencies of weather and the malice of infidels, and which have survived thanks to the excellence of their technique and the superb workmanship of their painters.

Even, today, when the golden background of the frescoes has almost completely vanished, so that the glint of gold can be discerned beneath the dark ochre only when appropriately lit, the visitor can still experience this great beauty in a quiet and joyful way, while the harmony of tones and colours continues to reverberate in him long after he leaves Sopoćani.

What makes Sopoćani so exciting is, above all, a marvelous synthesis of classical creative energy and Christian sensibility, a subtle combination of the sensual and the spiritual, the authentic and the imaginative, the intellectual and the emotional - a combination which imparts a lasting magic to these paintings. There is no disharmony in Sopoćani: everything is part of a comprehensive rich design, the beauty of whose forms nothing can impair, not even an occasional garish colour, a forced gesture, or harsh lateral lighting which may make a form look awkwardly rigid - for the painter of Sopoćani was one of the subtlest and most sophisticated colourists in old Serbian painting, an artist who could invent the most refined harmonies of colours and steep his paintings in a suffused light that seems to have been filtered through gauze. His drawing has a fine stylization which endows all forms and gestures with a lasting charm. In Sopoćani the main constituent elements of the painting - the line, volume and colour - are brought into perfect harmony, powerfully communicating the subject-matter and the artist's message. The work of the master of Sopoćani is superior to all other paintings of mediaeval Serbia, because it is the product of a superb talent and of the noblest artistic aspirations.

In the paintings of Sopoćani all the faces seem to radiate benevolence and calm. The beautiful figures, full of exalted energy, seem to harken to some inner silence and harmony. This mood of classical serenity gives way, but only occasionally the the suppressed agony of a wounded soul (Mother of God and St. John in The Crucifixion). Exceptionally, there is a tremor of tension on a face, some trace of anxiety, of unrest, insecurity, for »the human flesh is more fragile than ice or glass«, as the Italian poet Angelo Tornabuoni wrote in the 13th century (the Angel in Abraham's Hospitality, the Noli me tangere scene, Mary meeting the resurrected Christ). Sometimes the face is darkened by an incurable melacholy; its weight seems to bow the head, to paralyze movement, to cloud the eye (Christ in The Ascension, Christ in The Incredulity of St Thomas). This contrast, when a human figure, which seems to be full of unbounded energy, wisdom and goodness, is struck by sorrow and becomes helpless and paintfully vulnerable was expressed with equal power by the master of Sopoćani in the 13th century and by Michelangelo in the sculptures of the Medici Chapel and, more passionately still, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel some three centuries later.

The vision of the events from the New Testament - only the New Testament is illustrated - represented by the master of Sopoćani is primarily epic and monumental. Solemn without being rhetorical and warm without being pathetic, it is a serene and nobly humane vision. It springs from the faith which brings peace of mind, good will and forgiveness such as are expressed by Christ, his disciples and the other figures in the frescoes.

At Sopoćani not only the painted scenes are interrelated, but the colours and forms of the walls seem to stand in some sort of mysterious and meaningful relationship. Above the founder's composition is The Crucifixion; opposite is The Resurrection - the symbol of the future resurrection of all men. Christ, being both a man and God, suffered tortures as a man and rose from the dead as God, and liberated the just from the darkness of hell. The Annunciation on the eastern central arch begins the great mystery of the Redemption; it is continued in the scene of the miraculous birth of the Son of God and ends with the Dormition of Mother of God on the west wall.

The altar space contains scenes depicting Christ's appearances after the Resurrection and the liturgy of thanks-giving - the Adoration of Christ. Events from Christ's life on earth are narrated in the central part of the church.

The Sopoćani frescoes are not simply a programme of church decoration: each composition in itself has a great impact on the observer and radiates a warmth of feeling so powerfully that, for example, the air itself seems to cease to stir when the Apostle John in The Crucifixion approaches Mother of God, weighed down with the burden of grief, and bends over her like a mighty protecting arch.

This general mood of classical calm, serenity and new sensitivity is not peculiar to Sopoćani. The same spirit permeates Gothis architecture, particularly that of France. This parallelism, manifested in such different techniques and environments, might be explained by the new wave of emotionalism awakened in the West by such great preachers as Francis of Assisi and Bonaventura, and by the aesthetic and theological studies based, in both East and West, on the works of Plotinus, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, on close study of Byzantine poetry and on direct contact with classical antiquity, whose monuments could be still seen in Constantinople. Bhe Byzantine variant of the classical tradition, so splendidly expressed in the manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries and in the mosaics at Daphni (c. 1100), may also have had some influence on this development.

At that time both East and West believed that material beauty could be used as a means to get closer to God and to that celestial light which is both knowledge and beauty. This ideal was glorified in an equally elevated style by the French Abbot Suger, the Serbian writer Domentianus (Domentijan) and the Italian poet Dante. It was embodied in the sculptures of the cathedrals in Amiens, Rheims, Strasbourg, in the sketches in some German manuscripts (Wolfenbueitel), which resemble closely their Byzantine originals, in the frescoes in Mileseva and, particularly, in the masterpieces of painting at Sopoćani. Scholars have demonstrated that artists living in the same historical epoch often express themselves in the same forms even if they work in very different environments and use different materials - and that the changes of taste and style in 13th-century art reflected the changes in the social and intellectual climate in which, at least termoporarily, considerable stability and security prevailed.

It seems that the master of Sopoćani was inspired by the poems of the famous Byzantine poet Roman Melodos (5th - 6th century). His lines seem to describe perfectly the kind and compassionate Christ of Sopoćani. That may be the reason why there is so much suppressed emotion, so much nobility in sorrow and so little impetuosity and violent passion at Sopoćani. Everything here seems to be transferred from the realm of drama to the realm of poetry.

The central part of the church and the altar space contain the most beautiful frescoes. The paintings in the dome have disappeared without a trace, but we may assume that they followed the usual iconographic arrangement - that the ceiling of the dome was dominated by Christ Pantokrator, and that the drum contained representations of the prophets. The Evangelists were painted in the pendentives: Matthew in the south-eastern, Mark in the south-western, Luke in the north-western and John in the north-eastern pendentive. Three prophets and Seth were represented in the medallions between them. An inscription with the year of the painting of the church ran along the ring of the drum; unfortunately, the part on which the year was inscribed has perished, and the surviving fragments of the inscription contain the lines from the Imros of the Third Ode: »O, Lord, the fortress of those that place their trust in Thee, fortify this church of Thine«.

On the arches supporting the dome are painted full-length figures or busts of patriarchs and prophets. In the upper zone of the north-eastern pier the Archangel Gabriel approaches Mother of God, painted on the opposite pier (The Annunciation). Prophets, martyrs and warrior saints arc ranged below this composition.