Icons from Bulgaria

Icon painting in Bulgaria is closely connected with the historical destiny of the Bulgarian people and with Christianity adopted in 865 as official state religion. That was the time of the emergence of a new pictorial system, interpreted and evolved on the basis of a rich ancient artistic heritage of the Graeco-Roman and Thracian cultures, but subordinated to the traditions and lifestyle of the proto-Bulgarian and Slavonic tribes, a fact which makes it so original. The ceramic icons made in the late 9th and early 10th century in Preslav, the capital of the First Bulgarian state and the surrounding monasteries reveal the specific character of old Bulgarian art which is included by virtue of its high achievements in the East Orthodox cultural community.

Icons, called "dogmas in images" became widely spread in the Bulgarian lands. The data from the few specimens which have come down to us are supplemented by extensive written testimony to the popular cult of the icon and its place in the newly built churches of that time. Various techniques and materials were used in creating icons: stone, bone, enamel, mosaic, but above all, wood - a distempered board, a technique which became traditional in icon painting.

The icons for the present publication have been selected from among the best specimens of icon painting created in the Bulgarian lands from the 9th through the 19th centuries. They are already known from the large exhibitions of Bulgarian icons staged abroad and from a number of publications. The collection traces the typical changes which occurred in the style of icon painting in its thousand-year-long development. the liturgical nature and the austere dogmatism of the image have been preserved throughout the centuries, strictly regulated by the canon, preserving the purity of the legend and the authenticity of the models. Their historically justifiable conservatism notwithstanding, the icons were differently executed under the brush of various masters, a fact which explains their extraordinary diversity.