About Saint Andrea monastery

Saint Andrea, Matka monastery ... The Saint Andrea monastery in Matka is found at the approach to the picturesque lake on the river Treska. There is a restaurant in its immediate neighborhood.
The church of Saint Andrea was erected in 1389 by Andreja, the second son of the king Volkashin. The interior of the Saint Andrea church was frescoed by the metropolitan Jovan and the deacon Grigorije.
Althought the deacon Grigorije is a new name, the metropolian Jovan is known as the painter of the frescoes in the monastery in Prilep. The frescoes are stylistically outstanding but are the more so since, iconographically, the differ from the rest of Macedonian medieval monuments.
The painters here freed themselves from the Byzantine iconographical tradition and instead of painting the figures of the holy hermits, the miracles of Jesus and scenes from the life of the Virgin they present the full-lenght figures of the Holy Warriors whose life-like faces have tremendous force and apper wordly. The artists, in the compositions, move towards solving the problem of perspective and figure arrangement within a confine space.