New Page 3

The Bulgarian icon has a thousand-year old history, related to two rnomentous events for Bulgarian country.

In the year 865 the young Bulgarian State was the first among the Slavs to adopt Christianity as its official religion. From that time on the icon, as a practical object of the cult and the church rite, pioneered the development of Bulgarian art. It was after 865 that the young Christian State began to receive artists from the East whom, together with the Byzantine missionaries, were to embellish the newly -built temples. Thenceforward Bulgarian icon - painting followed the traditions of Byzantine and Eastern -Orthodox art while at the same time it retained its national character.

All this can be seen in the ceramic icons from the 91h and 10th century. These were mass-produced, as we know from the furnaces and workshops for glazed ceramic tiles discovered in the region of Patleina, near the, old Bulgarian capital Preslav. Among the famous icons of those days is that of St. Theodor Stratilatus, 9th- 10th centuries, made from 20 glazed tiles. It is done in the best artistic traditions of the Orient (Cappadocia, to be more precise) but the technique of painting is original: it was not known in the East then. Thus the art of the First Bulgarian State has a share in the artistic achievements of Orthodox culture.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, in Turnovo, the capital city of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom flourished the "golden age" of Patriarch Eftimii's literary reform. It had a strong bearing not only on Orthodox Slavonic Literature but on the Turnovo art school as well . The exceptionally line frescoes in the rock temples near Ivanovo in the Rousse district are an example of the highest class of Bulgarian art of the Paleologus renaissance. Another example is the exquisite two-sided icon, a painting of professional artistry, presented around 1 395 to the chapel of the Poganovski monastery by Helen Paleologus, a granddaughter of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan - Alexander.

The other event that had an impact on Bulgarian icon painting was Bulgaria's tragic fall under the Ottoman invaders of Europe. Since 1393 the Bulgarian Church was deprived of the support and subsidies of the state and of its own patriarchal too. This had its bad influence on ecclesiastical painting, while the planned demolition of monasteries and churches irrevocably deprived us of very many icons. But what remain shows that even during the Ottoman domination (1396-1878) icon painting continued its development, uneven though it may have been, mainly along two lines.

One of them goes back to the good medieval traditions of Athos and the old Bulgarian monasteries - the Rila Monastery, the Bachkovo Monastery and other monasteries near Sofia, Plovdiv and Turnovo. With their spirited literary and educational work they aided not only icon painting but also the preservation of the Bulgarian ethos, its spiritual maturing and rise to the idea of national independence.

The other trend illustrates the bond between icon painting and national art, the folklore, the latter motivating to some extent the pronounced democratic character of the art of that time. The I7th century saw an economic upsurge in most Bulgarian towns. They turned out many goods for the market of the Ottoman Empire, they traded with Western and Central Europe. This progress naturally gave impetus to art. Many of the finest icons have come down to us from the thriving towns of that time - Nessebur, Plovdiv, Turnovo, Etropole, Vratsa, Lovech - which were also centres of art.

The eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries mark the triumph of the National Revival and Enlightenment; national art schools were founded in some of those towns: the Samokov, the Tryavna, the Bansko and the Strandja art schools, each bearing its own specific character and technique. We associate with those schools the names of some painters: Hristo Dimitrov, Zahari Zograf, Stanisiav Dospevski from Samokov; Papa Vitanov and Zahari Tsanyov from Tryavna; Toma Vishanov and Dimiter Molerov from Bansko; Alexo Odrinchanin and Nikola Konstantinov from Strandja. Their remarkable works of art are landmarks in the history of the art of all Orthodox Balkan peoples. Zahari Zograf painted in the Great Monastery St. Athanasius in Athos, the Strandja master-painter Mitrophan Zograf - in the St. George in the Sveta Gora Zograf monastery, Ditcho Zograf and other painters from Debur painted in a number of churches in the south -eastern Balkan countries. True to new Revival outlook, they all transformed the rigid canonical painting into a life -asserting art, viewing reality and replacing the austere, stringent colours by bright and gay hues.

The Bulgarian icon lived through the vicissitudes of a small but ardent Balkan nation. The achievements of that art, which has been created and mastered for ten centuries now, judged on their merits today - the exhibitions of Bulgarian icons aroused enormous interest in Paris and London, in Moscow and Leningrad, in Tokyo and Mexico...

Today, having taken its befitting place in the national museums and galleries, the icon, with its silent and composed grandeur, takes us into a remote world of grace and beauty. It is the evidence of the Bulgarian contribution to the pan-Orthodox art and culture.

	The Virgin Eleusa; St. Pantaleon, St. Basil the Great, St. John the Precursor and St. Elijah, 1807; Mount Athos, tempera on wood; 54 x 36 cm., National History Museum.

	The Virgin Glykophilousa; Early 19 century; the Monastery of Boboshevo; tempera on wood; 53 x 40 cm., National History Museum.

	SS Cyril and Methodius; Second half of 19 century; the Bulgarian Church of Cyril and Methodius in Bucharest; tempera on wood; 112 x 65 cm., National History Mu- seum, inv. No 6087.
	Archangel Michael; Mid-19 century; the Church of Archangel Michael in Osikovitsa, Botevgrad region; tempera on wood, 91 x 60 cm., National History Museum.
	St. Nicholas; Early 19 century; the Church of the Blessed Virgin at the Karloukovo Monastery; painted by Christo Dimitrov; Samokov school; tempera on wood; 105 x 70 cm., National History Museum.
	St. Theodore, 9th-10th century, from the Patleina Monastery near Preslav, glazed ceramics, 20 separate white clay tiles, 50x44 cm, National Archaeological Museum.
	Imperial doors; 1661; origin unknown; tempera on woodcarving; 171x98 cm. National History Museum,.
	The Virgin Glykophilousa; 1845; tempera on wood; 27.5 x 19.5 cm., National History Museum.
	John the Theologian and The Katafigi Virgin Mary; Two sided icon; tempera on wood; from Pogonovski Monastiry; National Art Gallery.