Culture of Bulgaria - Visual Art

Visual Art

Bulgaria has a rich heritage in the visual arts, especially in frescoes, murals and icons. The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak offers fine examples of excellently preserved ancient Thracian art. Tomb art provides one of the most important sources of information about Thracian lifestyle and culture. Visual arts in the Bulgarian lands experienced an upsurge during the entire period of the Middle ages. The crypt of the Alexander Nevski cathedral features an exhibition of a large collection of medieval icons. The earliest of those dates from around the 9th century AD. The Tarnovo Artistic School, the mainstream of the Bulgarian fine arts and architecture between 13th and 14th centuries, takes its name from the capital and main cultural center of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Tarnovo. Although it shows the influence of some tendencies of the Palaeologan Renaissance in the Byzantine Empire, the Tarnovo painting had its own unique features which makes it a separate artistic school. Art historians classify its products into two types:

• mural painting: mural decoration of churches
• iconography: easel painting

The works of the school show some degree of realism, portrait individualism and psychology.

The unique and realistic portraits in the Boyana Church class as forerunners of the Renaissance.

The wall piers and the arches often featured medallion-shaped bust images of saints. Magnificent examples of those survive in SS Peter and Paul Church in Tarnovo. Along with traditional scenes such as "Christ's passions" and "Feast cycle" in the second layer; "Christ Pantokrator" in the dome and the Madonna with the infant Christ in the apse, specific images and scenes also appear. During the period of Ottoman rule (1396-1878) the authorities suppressed Bulgarian art. Many churches suffered destruction, and newly built ones remained somewhat modest. In the end of the 18th century the Islamic Ottoman empire began to decay slowly, thus permitting the Bulgarian National Revival of the 18th and 19th centuries to occur. Bulgaria experienced a revival in every area of culture. Following the Liberation in 1878, fine arts rapidly recovered and came under the influence of European artistic currents such as late Romanticism.