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The text introduces the history and problematic of the festival ‘Process-Space’ held since 1992 for a period of 17 years in Balchik (and only once in Russe). Up to now the festival has organized over 100 exhibitions and a number of art studies’ seminars. Over 500 artists have taken part in it while its collection has about 20000 works (performances, actions and different integrated forms). Its title, that changes every year, suggests that at the level of conception an accent on the inexhaustible possibilities of artistic expression were at the basis. Communication is among the central problems of creative discussions - communication between generations, between artistic points of view and concepts. Developing in a dynamic and first of all free form, the festival ‘Process Space’ each time turns into an event that can encompass all definitions and all discriminations - depending on the energy of the debaters.
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The article acquaints us with the identification and importance of an unpublished up to now work by the artist Geori Popov-John found in Balchik - a portrait of the Russian director Sergei Vasiliev, painted in 1955 by the artist. At the end of the 40s of the 20th century John Popov, who is dedicated mostly to painting, is forced to ‘resort’ to other media. Disappointed by the imposed normative aesthetics and by stigmatization of serious art as formalistic, he seemingly leaves painting and finds salvation as an artist in the theater and cinema. He is the art director of one of the first films of the new Bulgarian cinema -Under the Yoke (directed by Dako Dakovski in 1952), The Heroes of Shipka (directed by Sergei Vasiliev in 1955), Two Victories (directed by Borislav Sharaliev in 1956), Legend about Love (directed by Vaclav Krshka in 1957) and Accidental Con cert (directed by Kosta Naumov in 1960). When he created the portrait of S. Vasiliev John Popov was one of the artists working on the film The Heroes of Shipka. During the 50s John continues to paint and is one of the few artists that did not change their style. During this last decade of his life he makes a number of portraits. Among those is the portrait of Sergei Vasiliev for which again he is accused of formalism - something quite typical for the 50s in Bulgarian art which fact has a negative effect on his fate and creative work.
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The text examines the discovered in 2007 in Balchik antique temple of the Pontic Mother of the Gods (Kibela). As a result of excavations a well preserved temple was discovered, containing a pronaos and naos, which are parallel to some temples in the Greek polices on the Western and Northern Black Sea coast. The characteristics of the architectural decorations, the technique of construction and the construction ceramics allow the authors to date it most possibly at the period 280-260 BC. Numerous marble statues, statuettes and reliefs were discovered in the temple and most of them show Kibela sitting on a throne. Some of them present a lion lying in her lap. The main temple statue represents the goddess again sitting on a throne, in her right hand holding a phiale, in the left hand holding a scepter, while the lion is a relief image depicted on the right side of the throne. Many unbroken and fragmentized inscriptions were found which offer exceptionally important information about the religious and social life in Dionysopolis - Hellenistic decrees, a priest list from the 3rd century, inscriptions of dedication on cult objects, etc. This is the biggest group of movable monuments, connected with the cult of the Mother of the Gods as far as numbers and diversity is concerned, ever discovered in a temple.
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The text places an unusual accent on the history and culture of Balchik. The painting by Ivan B. Ivanov The Balchik Brass Band (1988) became a starting point for the analysis of moments from the creative life of its author and also about the treatment of the brass band as an inseparable part of our notion about the city. In it come alive memories form the youth and the experiences creative passion unlocked by the ‘sounding’ music. Presented are the author’s means of expression - the line expressiveness, the symbolism of the form, the taking out of the color outside its localized values. The author mingles with the artists that during the 60s and 70s helped Bulgarian art return back to the important and imminent forms of expression, when its experiments with plastically synthesized forms and color correlations led it abstract compositions. The theme of the brass music is examined in the context of the emergence of brass bands in Bulgaria during also that period when the painting was created. Pointed out is that repetitiveness of the memory, which binds a number of events and personal experiences during a whole century with the music of the city brass band.
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Boris Karadjea was a Romanian sculptor of Bulgarian origin. Her artistic development could be divided in two major stages - before and after the beginning of the socialist period in Romania. Due to historical circumstances B. Karadjea became a Romanian citizen after 1918 and he also chooses to stay such after Balchik, his birthplace, became part of Bulgaria in 1940. The article examines the problem of his possible presence in Bulgarian sculpture and how his work was reflected by the Bulgarian critics up to 1940 and looks at the main fields where Karadjea was realized as an author of easel plastics. Parallels are drawn with some of the major trends in the development of Bulgarian sculpture during the 30s and beginning of 40s of the 20th century. Sought are also the answers to the questions of why and how B. Karadjea expressed preference for Romania as a place for realization as a sculptor and lecturer.
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The general impression of the gallery’s collection is that the Balchik Art Gallery owns a well selected and valuable fund ‘A’, which defines its individuality. It has works from the old masters, that have worked between the two world wars but it also has works by important contemporary authors from the socialist and post-socialist period. Especially representative of the gallery are is the paintings sector of fund ‘A’. Among the well known authors from the first half of the 20th century is VJ. Dimitrov-The Master, N. Tanev, At. Mihov, B. Obreshkov, Ts. Lavrenov, V. Barakov, V. Lukanov, Iv. Ne nov, St. Venev, Iv. Hristov, N. Balkanski, B. Stefchev, P. Morozov, M. Zhekov, I, Petrov, P. Abadzhiev, Pr. Karshovski, Hr. Kavarnaliev. Among the contemporary authors stand out the names of I.Vukadinov, N. Petkov, G. Genkov, S. Rusev, D. Kirov, M. Deneva, G. Bozhilov-Slona, E. Stoichev, L. Dimanov, I. Kirkov, G. Baev, N. Daskalov, V. Decheva, I. B. Ivanov, M. Monev, V. Goev, R. Gasharov, N. Tsonev. Less numerous but very well presented is the younger generation - E. Demerdzhiyan, M. Bozhkov, G. Assa, A. Daniel, V. Poponedelev, I. Chernev. Their works offer a wide panorama of Bulgarian art. The landscape is represented best, especially that connected with Balchik and the region. Then follow the still-life and the portrait, which are also presented by first class authors. The contemporary period is better displayed that from the bourgeois period as far as style is concerned but both are a bit thematically one-sided - this can pass as a specific quality of the collection and consequently - as a particular value of the fund which characteristic traits lie in the sea themes and landscape paintings.
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In the middle of the l9th century the activity of the icon painters from Tryavna spread out very actively in the whole of Dobrudzha. And if their artistic heritage in the boundaries of the present Bulgarian lands is comparatively well known, we cannot state the same about Northern Dobrudzha. In June 2008 specialists from the Regional Museum of History in Dobrich, the Specialized Museum on Carving and icon painting in Tryavna and the Regional Museum of History in Varna with the active support of the Varna-Preslav Bishop’s Residence held a scientific expedition in the region of the city Constanta and Tulcea. Discovered and photographed were over 300 icons and wood carvings, mainly dated from the middle of the 19th century, which were preserved in Romanian churches and monasteries. The icon painters, who had worked in these regions, were representatives of the two best icon-painting families from Tryavna - Vitanov and Zaharievski. Three churches were discovered which had preserved in their Revival style, as well as icons in the museum collections of the churches and monasteries. Among those most impressive was the collection from the monastery ‘Sv. Troitsa’ (Kokosh). Since the collected material is of great volume, this article examines only the works of the painters from the Vitanov family.
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In the dynamically changing geopolitical and social-historical circumstances in Southern Dobrudzha, the city of Balchik becomes con secutively a zone of the northeastern border of Bulgaria (1878-1913), the most southern point of the Romanian Kingdom (1913-1916), again the northeastern border of Bulgaria (1916-1920), again the most southern point of Romania (1920-1940), again the northeastern border of Bulgaria (since 1940 up to the present). These changes to a large extent explain why in many (academic as well as tourist) publications on Balchik echoed some pre conditioned or romanticized national thesis where the objective view on the city and its social life, its natural, social and cultural specificities are twisted or Jost in the jungle of mythologized stories. Subject of the text are the interrelations between the city and the built near it Place of the Romanian Queen Maria, as well as the constructed there villas of Romanian painters and writers. Special attention is dedicated on the reflection of the newly introduced forms of intellectual and worldly court life on the general image of the city, reflected in the city’s social and housing architecture, the environment, in the artistic and social life. On the basis of the accessible at present sources and publication, the text analyses the changes in the city’s life that have taken place as a result of its basic economic profile (from a port and trade center into a sea resort town) and the influence of this change on its further development as a small seaside town and its role in modern reality.
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