Модели и пътища за модернизиране на църковната живопис в българските земи от втората половина на XVIII и XIX век
Models and Paths of Modernization of Church Painting in Bulgarian Lands from the Second Half of the 18th and 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: A process of ideological, iconographic, stylistic and ornamental decorative level, reflecting to a great extent European influences, takes place in Bulgarian lands since the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The contacts with the culture of European Enlightenment, having several forms, accomplish themselves on several levels and on different paths. Three main ones take form among them, where are moving the models of our artists from the period of the National Revival. The first one is the way of direct contacts and influences of West European culture; the other two are indirect, through mediators — rationalized and checked in the light of Orthodoxy and assuming in this way a lawful form. The former is through Ukraine and Russia — as the most active reinterpreter of catholic iconography, and also through neighbouring Serbia (by the mediation of the serb baroc art from the second half of the 18th century) — the first to adopt the models of Russian and Ukrainian reformed art creating during the 17th – 18th century a syncretic form of the art of the Catholic and Orthodox world. The new models and iconographic solutions spread in the rest of the Orthodox lands mainly through the richly illustrated old-printed book and iconography. The latter and particularly active way, in which Bulgarian icon-painters revive church painting is Holly Wood (Aton) — the Orthodox center, that also interprets, recreates and legitimizes models and ideas. And one of the most important aspects of this process is the phenomenon of the Holly Wood’s wood-cut.

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