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"No other place in the world holds, as Bukovina does, such a highly developed organic painting system; nowhere else in the whole world are there to be found frescoes on both the interior and the exterior sides of the walls of churches which are drawn together within an area so small as if it were an open air museum. Moreover, no other place exhibits frescoes preserved so well as the monasteries which lie at the foot of Bukovinan hillocks. The aesthetic value of those paintings goes well beyond their iconographic, cultural and historic significance, as they can undeniably be ranged among the greatest Byzantine or Renaissance works of art."

Grigore Nandris:

"Humanism in Postbyzantine Mural Painting",

The visitor is dazzled by the perfect chromatic harmony between the light blue background of the monasteries' painted walls and the blue summer sky along the greenshades of lawns, pastures and forests around. These small and colourful churches which soar up skywards like flowers from the ground are a unique artistic form to express man's naive, prodigious and solemn imagination and his irrepressible joy of life.

The value of the frescoes is not only a matter of painting technique. The idea of decorating the outer walls of a church with scenes taken from the Bible is original in itself. The images are a mixture of biblical events with folk tales, legends, and great historical events, like the fall of Constantinople (1453) for instance. The painting would cover the whole wall surface of a church, which is another element that renders the five painted monasteries of Bukovina unique.

Voronet was founded by Stefan the Great in 1488 to celebrate a victory over Turks. Its frescoes were added between 1547 and 1550. The predominant color of Voronet’s artwork is a vivid blue (Voronet blue) which serves as background to all other designs and which probably comes from a mixture of azurite and lapis lazuli. A depiction of the Last Judgment covers the entire west wall of the church showing devils and angels casting sinners into the fire beneath Jesus’ feet. The southern wall displays the Three of Jesse, the genealogy of Jesus, with nearly 100 personages.

The church is maintained by a group of nuns who periodically perform a traditional religious board tapping ritual dating from the days when the ringing of church bells was banned.

Humor Monastery, founded in 1530 by Teodor Bubuiog, is distinguished by its wide open porch, spirelles roof and dark reddish hues. Humor was the first church to have a tomb chamber in Moldavia. The southern wall is painted with 24 scenes from the poem Hymn to the Virgin, written by Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople in honor of the defeat of the Persians. The porch is painted with another Last Judgment scene where the devil is represented as an evil woman.

Moldovita was founded in 1532 by the Ruler Petru Rares, Stefan the Greate’s illegitimate son. Set against a deep blue background, the red, yellow, blue and brown frescoes present a panoramic view of the siege of Constantinople, it also has the Three of Jesse and Hymn to the Virgin. Other objects of religious art are kept in a remarkably attractive museum in what used to be the royal residence.

Sucevita also has a wonderfully scenic position, surrounded by hills and spruce forests, it dominates its valley like no other Moldavian church. Build in 1582 by Gheorghe Movila, Bishop of Radauti, the church is covert with thousands of pictures, more than any of others, but the west wall is blank. Legend has it that the painter fell off his scaffolding and was killed, thus this wall was left unfinished.

Here history is at home in monasteries and citadels, in churches which shelter riches of old Romanian civilization, traditions born from the treasure of Romanian folklore.

During Stephen the Great's reign a new architectural style was born: the Moldavian style would later enter the history of universal art. It defined a harmonious mixture of folk artistic traditions with Gothic and Byzantine influences that had come from Serbia, Russia,Poland. The Moldavian style brought many decorative and building innovations to the heritage of universal art.

Voronet Monastery built in 1488 by the Prince Stephen the Great.

It is considered by many to be the "Sistine Chapel of the East", due to the magnificient frescoes representing "Last Judgement".

Voronet is unique in the world for the blue nuance of the exterior paintings named "Voronet Blue", added by specialists alongside colours such as the "Titan Ted" of Rubens and "Veronese Green".

Stephen the Great (1457-1504), and his son, Petru Rares (1530-1538). Stephen the Great was an illustrious army commander, a defender of christendom and a prolific promoter of culture. They say that Stephen the Great ruled for 47 years, that he fought 47 defence battles, mainly against the Turks, but also against the Tartars, the Kossaks, the Poles and the Magyars, and that he erected about the same number (44) of churches and monasteries

The most valuable asset of the monasteries, the one for which they are world famous, is their outer wall painting in fresco technique, perceived by Michelangelo, for instance, as 'the most difficult and most daring way of painting'. The painters would draw and paint directly on wet lime, upon which they would apply colour layers that would penetrate deep into the plaster.

What is coined as almost a miracle is the fact that a layer of colour of only 0,25 cm thick could possibly resist to all climatic, seasonal and human interferences for almost 500 years

Putna Monastery was one of the first churches which Stefan the Great had build in Moldavia and was designed as his family mausoleum. The original church was build between 1466-1470 but it was destroyed by fire soon afterwards. The present building dates from the mid 17th century although it is said to be a close copy of the original. Legend says that the rebuilding happened in order to find Stefan’s treasure. Under Stefan’s patronage, Putna Monastery became a great cultural center.

Thick forests and imposing crests ("obcine"), branching off from the Carpathians, which allow a wonderful panorama of valleys, with houses scattered here and there, with large gardens and farm yards inviting to lie down by the haystacks and look up at the blue sky with its marvelous hues.

This where the painted monasteries which now hold a place of pride among world cultural sites were built during the 15th-16th centuries marked by the Moldavians princes