Interpretation debates
The wall paintings of this region offer a synthesis of two traditions: Byzantine and Syriac. While the decorative themes show a Byzantine influence, the tradition is Syriac and the artistic style comes under a typology presenting the following features:
• Mono-dimensional figures
• A staid, majestic setting, solemnly formal
• Outlines marked by a mere thick black line
• Uniform, even colouring. No nuancing or deepening that would create relief, just filling in the drawn outlines.
• Still, frontal, engaging stances
• Rigid, taut draping
• Stereotypical, oval shaped faces
• Almond-shaped, widely opened eyes staring into eternity. The lines of the eyebrows are extended to shape the nose. Noses and mouths always the same.
In the course of a communication to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres en 1927, Charles Diehl reported the presence of a large composition representing the Dormition of the Virgin in the church of Saint Theodore (Mar Tadros) at Behdidat; This requires some clarification. It so happens that the study he had undertaken was based on watercolours realised by Leon Tutundjan at the request of Charles Virolleaud. There are two possible explanations: in the first alternative Diehl mistook them for the pictorial programme of the church of Mar Charbel in the village of M'ad where there is a Dormition of the Virgin in the funereal chapel at the south-eastern angle of the building. The second supposes the existence of a layer destroyed in order to divulge the current programme, although the scrutiny of the painted walls of the church of Mar Tadros at Behdidat offers no tangible evidence in support of this hypothesis.
No scientific research has been undertaken to track the exact date of the paintings. Researchers have so far settled for a date in the middle or during the third quarter of the 13th century. The murals in Mar Tadros of Behdidat exude the local style, linked to the tradition of the remote monasteries of Syria (Qalmoun) and Iraq and show some kinship with Muslim art. In Behdidat, the local style stands out for its aesthetic consistency: the freshness of the colours in spite of the brown varnish, the care given to the decorative, architechtonic patterns, the figures' clothing. This style negates perspective with facial features reduced to lines and a very limited range of colour tones. This stylistic approach points to the work of one single artist, the “master of Behdidat” or of a single atelier, to which the paintings in Mar Charbel are also attributed along with the paintings in the troglodyte chapel of Mart Shmuni in the region of Hadchit in Northern Lebanon.
